US trade agreement threatens to increase drug prices and withhold safety data

Campaign groups have criticized the US government of “shameful bullying on behalf of the giant drug companies” during trade negotiations between the United States and 11 Asian and Latin American countries in the so called Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Draft text from the secretive trade rounds published on WikiLeaks focus on intellectual property, an area of law affecting areas as diverse as pharmaceuticals and civil liberties.1 The leak came ahead of another meeting on the agreement in Salt Lake City next week.

The trade agreement includes proposals for more than a dozen measures that would limit competition and raise drug prices.

The US watchdog group Public Citizen said that the text showed that a US representative was pressing the other negotiating countries “to expand pharmaceutical monopoly protections and trade away …