<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>From Nobel-wining Doctors Without Borders: TPP would be "the most harmful trade deal ever for access to medicines"</div><div><br></div><div><b>*As clock ticks toward Trans-Pacific trade pact deadline, negotiators must<br>fix most harmful trade pact ever for access to medicines.*</b><br><br>*<br><a href="http://www.msfaccess.org/about-us/media-room/press-releases/clock-ticks-toward-trans-pacific-trade-pact-deadline-us-must-end">http://www.msfaccess.org/about-us/media-room/press-releases/clock-ticks-toward-trans-pacific-trade-pact-deadline-us-must-end</a><br>*<br><br>*New York – 4 March 2013* – As closed-door talks for the Trans-Pacific<br>Partnership (TPP) Agreement resume in Singapore this week, international<br>medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans<br>Frontières (MSF) calls on the U.S. government to end its stall tactics and<br>revise its proposals for what otherwise promises to be the most harmful<br>trade deal ever for access to medicines in developing countries.<br><br>The TPP negotiations, which currently involve eleven Asia-Pacific<br>countries, are being conducted in secret, but leaked texts reveal the most<br>aggressive intellectual property (IP) measures ever suggested in a trade<br>deal with developing countries. The U.S. proposals threaten to roll back<br>internationally-agreed public health safeguards and would put in place<br>far-reaching monopoly protections that keep medicine prices high and out of<br>the reach of millions in the Asia-Pacific region.<br><br>“Too many people already die needlessly because the medicines they need are<br>too expensive or do not exist, and we cannot stand by as the Trans-Pacific<br>Partnership threatens to further restrict access to medicines in developing<br>countries,” said Dr. Unni Karunakara, International President of MSF. “We<br>are gravely concerned about countries like Thailand, where MSF started<br>treating HIV/AIDS more than a decade ago and then transitioned its programs<br>to local authorities with the confidence that they would be able to<br>continue providing lifesaving treatments. Now Thailand is on the cusp of<br>joining a dangerous deal that could jeopardize its ability to maintain, let<br>alone scale up, vital, life-saving health programs for its people.”<br><br>Furthermore, U.S. negotiators have said the TPP will be a template for its<br>future trade agreements across the globe, setting a damaging<br>precedent. Despite<br>widespread opposition to its current proposals, including from other<br>negotiating countries, the U.S. has failed to put forth any alternative<br>text, essentially running out the clock so countries may be forced to<br>accept its original demands in order to meet the announced October 2013<br>deadline.<br><br>The proposed IP rules would grant the pharmaceutical industry a<br>wide-ranging set of legal mechanisms designed to prolong monopoly<br>protection for medicines and delay the availability of more affordable<br>generic versions. These demands represent a complete repudiation of the<br>U.S. government’s own 2007 bipartisan trade policy, which promised to scale<br>back some of the harshest IP provisions in trade deals with developing<br>countries.<br><br>One proposed TPP provision would require governments to grant new 20-year<br>patents for modifications of existing medicines, such as a new forms, uses<br>or methods, even without improvement of therapeutic efficacy for patients.<br>Another provision would make it more expensive and cumbersome to challenge<br>undeserved or invalid patents; and yet another would add additional years<br>to a patent term to compensate for administrative processes. Taken<br>together, these and other provisions will add up to more years of<br>high-priced medicines at the expense of people needing treatment, who must<br>wait longer for access to affordable generics.<br><br>Meanwhile, provisions in the proposed investment chapter would give<br>pharmaceutical companies the right to sue governments for instituting any<br>regulation that reduces their expected profits, using private tribunals<br>that circumvent a country’s judicial process. U.S. pharmaceutical company<br>Eli Lilly is using similar provisions in NAFTA to demand $100 million from<br>the Canadian government for invalidating one of its patents, claiming,<br>among other things, that the company’s expected profits were “expropriated”<br>when the patent was overturned.<br><br>“Despite paying lip service to the idea of balancing public health with<br>trade interests, the U.S. government has yet to revise its demands for<br>harmful provisions that will obstruct access to affordable generic<br>medicines,” said Judit Rius Sanjuan, U.S. manager for MSF’s Access Campaign.<br>“Countries negotiating the TPP must prevent harmful provisions from being<br>shoe-horned into the final deal. The U.S. and its TPP partners must take<br>their public health commitments seriously and agree to a trade agenda that<br>promotes both innovation and access to medicines.”<br><br>*<br>*<br><br>*For additional information, please view MSF's February 2013** TPP briefing<br>note -<br><a href="http://www.msfaccess.org/content/trading-away-health-trans-pacific-partnership-agreement-tpp">http://www.msfaccess.org/content/trading-away-health-trans-pacific-partnership-agreement-tpp</a><br>and<br>visit** **msfaccess.org/tpp for updates.*<br><br>###<br><br></div></body></html>