Like the TPP, RCEP is on track to become a very bad deal for medicines: MSF
15 June 2016
As negotiators meet in New Zealand this week for Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says the agreement threatens access to affordable medicines for half the world’s population and appeals for the removal of harmful intellectual property provisions that could potentially raise treatment costs by creating new forms of monopolies and delaying the entry of affordable generics in the market.
Belinda Townsend from the Public Health Association of Australia said:
“The RCEP trade deal threatens to undermine India and China’s role as major suppliers of generic medicines for people in the developing world, including both low- and middle-income countries such as Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines and Thailand. Access to affordable generic medicines is vital for these countries to address public health challenges, including HIV, tuberculosis, viral hepatitis and non-communicable diseases, and to ensure that their governments can progressively realize the sustainable development goal of universal access to health care. If RCEP imposes high levels of intellectual property protection, these countries could lose their capacity to increase access to affordable of medicines for their populations.”