By SARAH KARLIN-SMITH and BRIANNA EHLEY
It’s not unusual for U.S. presidents from either political party
to advocate for strong intellectual property protections for drug companies
overseas. The Obama administration, for example, pushed for 12 years of
biologic medicines exclusivity in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade
agreement. Obama officials also went to bat for the drug industry when
low-income countries tried to issue compulsory licenses to break patents and
make cheaper medicines for diseases like cancer. But advocates say Trump’s backing
of this status quo is notable, given his strident populist drug-bashing.
“We were sort of back in the ‘90s with the intellectual property
maximalist agenda,” ‘t Hoen said.
Trump has also brought the global pharmaceutical debate into the
domestic dialogue. He’s gone to the American people and blamed other countries
for high prices in a way that past presidents did not.
“The Trump administration has been consistent and explicit about
its stance that the lower prices that some countries manage to pay are a problem
to be fixed rather than a practice to be studied for possible benefits at
home,” said Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines
Program.
Others say that Trump has gone further than past presidents by
shepherding drug industry interests abroad in areas besides trade. At a WHO
meeting in January, the administration fought ideas like greater transparency
about R&D spending — an idea that has gotten some bipartisan support in
Congress. They portrayed it as “some big attack on the pharmaceutical
industry,” said Jamie Love, director of Knowledge Ecology International, a
nonprofit that pushes for broader access to medical technology.
Garrett Grigsby, director of HHS’ Office of Global Affairs, told a
meeting of the WHO executive board that “requiring companies to attempt to
calculate and then disclose research and development costs are impractical and
unlikely to be effective.” He added that it could even prompt drug companies to
abandon risky research that could benefit "the vulnerable communities we
are meant to serve and humanity as a whole."
Defenders of the Trump agenda argue that strong intellectual
property laws and reimbursement for medicines overseas are critical for the new
drug pipeline, which requires millions, even billions of dollars.
“Innovators and creators need to be fairly compensated for their
work,” said Brian Pomper, executive director of ACTION for Trade, which
includes business groups and the two major U.S. drug lobbies, PhRMA and BIO.
“It’s a natural human instinct to want to get stuff for free,” but if goods are
free, he argued, no one will create or disseminate them.
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