TPP text reveals pharma liberalisation measures within Pacific Rim deal
The agreement's text has now been published
Details of liberalising commitments attached to pharmaceuticals traded between signatory countries of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) have been released.
The agreement’s text has now been published – it covers the USA, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Vietnam, Malaysia, Chile, Brunei, Singapore and Peru.
On duties, the aim is to make most trades duty free – but there are exceptions. Also in many cases duties will disappear once the agreement comes into force – which may happen in 2016 or 2017. All these details are included in tariff elimination schedules released by the governments. The schedules show the current level of duties and the time a government will take to scrap them for intra-TPP zone trades. These are listed in detailed national schedules and in Chapter 2.
A good example is looking at the US schedule.
Meanwhile detailed commitments made by signatories within a special pharma section for regulating their medicine markets have also been revealed. Where more than one agency regulates medicines, TPP governments have promised to eliminate unnecessary duplication of any regulatory requirements. Also, parties have promised not to require financial data concerning the marketing of the product within market approval assessments. And these controls will be 'timely, reasonable, objective, transparent, and impartial…' said the text. Furthermore, no TPP regulator shall require that a pharmaceutical product receive marketing authorisation within a manufacturing as a condition for local market approval. See here.
Meanwhile, health controls on goods traded between TPP countries have also been released.
Full details are here.