Flush The TPP
If signed in its current form, the TPP—a far-reaching trade agreement involving the US and 11 other Pacific-Rim countries—would force all countries to grant additional drug patents, extending monopolies on medicines beyond 20 years, a practice called patent “evergreening.”
The agreement would also impose an unprecedented extended period of exclusivity for clinical data required to prove the safety and efficacy of drugs and vaccines that are “biologic” products, extending monopolies in TPP countries, which will delay lower-cost versions of these medicines from entering the market.
