ISDS Case Map
medicines
Statement of May 2011 against the increasingly rapid spread of Free Trade Agreements that put the profits of multinational pharmaceutical companies ahead of people’s right to health around the world.
India formally announced at the UN High
Level Meeting on HIV and AIDS that it will not accept data exclusivity, a
provision harmful to access to affordable medicines, as part of a free trade
agreement currently being negotiated with the European Union.
The TPP chapter may be best seen as a significant step toward the pharmaceutical industry’s ultimate goal, which is a binding international agreement on drug pricing that would restrain the ability of governments to use collective purchasing power to demand prices below “market” levels.
Pharmac is being targeted by US drug companies as trade negotiations continue with the United States.
As the global community meets in New York for the United Nations General Assembly High Level Meeting on HIV and AIDS from 8 to 10 June 2011, networks of People living with HIV, health groups and treatment activists from around the world are calling for an immediate moratorium on all Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and TRIPS-plus measures.
Canadians spend a lot of money (public and private) on health care and much of that is spent on drugs — some $23.4 billion in 2008. Provincial insurance plans are desperately trying to cope, looking to initiatives like the recently passed Ontario law that caps prices of generic drugs at 25 per cent of the brand name equivalent.
Labour leader Phil Goff says his party would not put government drug buying agency Pharmac on the block to gain a free trade deal with the United States.
KEI has received a copy of a May 16, 2011 letter from Karl De Gucht to Andris Piebalgs, which discusses (1) the EU-India FTA, and (2) Relations between IPR and development policies.
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take Pharmac off the table in Trans Tasman Partnership (TTP) negotiations.
Some of New Zealand's most prominent businesspeople are rallying to the support of drug buying body Pharmac as lobbying firm Saunders Unsworth mounts a campaign against the agency ahead of free trade negotiations with the US.
