As the article says, this is another "TPP perk" that will be tough for the Un-wealthy to swallow.
Because THAT's what holding our global economy back -- the epidemic damage that "generics" flooding the low-rent districts, is causing.
TPP pill difficult to swallow for pharmaceuticals
by Stephen Cauchi, smh.com.au/business -- April 25, 2015
[...]
What the pharmaceutical industry is proposing as part of the TPP is 12 years of monopoly after the release of a new treatment. During this time, companies will be able to charge whatever the market will bear for the new drug.
That period is seven years longer than the current data protection period in Australia, after which competitors can develop and sell cheap generic alternatives. And for someone suffering a serious illness who needs affordable medicine, that seven years literally could be a life-and-death difference.
Yes, many life-saving drugs are subsidised [...] Of course, that merely shifts the problem around.
[...]
Of course, the pharmaceutical industry has a sound response to all this. The extra profit generated by protected medicine will drive investment in research and development, allowing drugs to be developed that would otherwise have stayed locked in the minds of scientists. Yes, people might complain about a drug that is very expensive for 12 years. But the alternative, the industry says, would have been no drug at all.
But the difference between "incentive" and "greed" is a grey area. [...]
Please. We must think of the "poor" Big Pharmas ... for a change.
Because if we don't give them want they demand -- they just might all go golfing instead.
Who will fix your 'boo-boos' then?
Besides, those who can 'afford the Brand Names' -- aren't complaining.
And over on the "Wealthy-side" of the Flat World Pond, those "evil" generic drugs have already been put in their place, long ago ...
[...]
However, because manufacturers usually apply for patents before completing the clinical trials required for Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, the functional duration of such protection is less than the full patent life. In the Hatch-Waxman Act of 1984, the U.S. government restored some of the patent term lost to the regulatory approval process.[3] As a result, the time from market entry to expiration of the original IP protection grew from an average of nine years in 1984 to 11.5 years by the 1990s.[4]
To improve the availability of generic drugs after such protection expires, the Hatch-Waxman Act simplified the approval process for generic products. (Bioequivalent generic products have nearly always been shown to have identical therapeutic effects.)[5] Generics increased from 19 percent in 1984 to more than 47 percent of U.S. prescription drug sales by 2002, spurred also by proliferation of drug formularies and mandatory generic-substitution laws.[6] In 2004, brand-name drugs cost an average of $84 per prescription, versus an average of $31 for generics.[7] Several reports have detailed millions of dollars in cost savings achievable through generic-substitution policies employed by government and private payers.[8]
[...]
Extensions Of Intellectual Property Rights And Delayed Adoption Of Generic Drugs: Effects On Medicaid Spending
Aaron S. Kesselheim, Michael A. Fischer and Jerry Avorn, healthaffairs.org -- April 2015
America, once again setting the way, for 'punishing' those with the Audacity of being Poor.
Why don't they just move to Vietnam -- and Get a Job, or something!
It's the New American Multi-National Way.