death sentence clause because it would actually condemn women to death, because they cannot afford or their healthcare systems can’t afford the medicines.’ Zahara Heckscher and Hannah Lyon were also later arrested at the headquarters of the Pharma lobby, protesting the clauses the industry inserted into the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In the wake of the action, Zahara Heckscher urged the United States Congress to reject the passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. She warned: ‘The TPP will effectively take some patients backwards in time to the dark ages of cancer treatment.’ Zahara Heckscher was concerned that the agreement ‘will prevent too many people with cancer – and other life threatening illnesses – from accessing the new treatments they need to stay alive’. Zahara Heckscher warned: ‘When science has the potential for them to be thrivers like me, living productive lives while in treatment, or to be cured, the TPP will be a death sentence.’ Zahara Heckscher stressed: ‘The TPP is not a policy wonk issue’. In her view, ‘It is a human issue that affects individuals like me who are fighting for our lives.’ Zahara Heckscher also observed that the agreement ‘affects our families too.’ Thinking about her own family, she reflected: ‘For my mother to die of breast cancer in the 1970s was a tragedy for our family.’ Zahara Heckscher concluded: ‘For people in the US and around the world to die unnecessary in this new millennium because of the TPP is a cruel, premeditated, and avoidable catastrophe.’ At the time of writing, there remains fierce debate in the United States political system over the passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. After expending significant political capital, President Barack Obama has obtained a Fast-Track authority for negotiating trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership from the United States Congress – with the help of
. Michael Grunwald from Politico received in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He observed: ‘A recent draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal would give U.S. pharmaceutical firms unprecedented protections against competition from cheaper generic drugs, possibly transcending the patent protections in U.S. law.’ Grunwald commented that ‘the draft chapter will provide ammunition for critics who have warned that TPP’s protections for pharmaceutical companies could dump trillions of dollars of additional health care costs on patients, businesses and governments around the Rim’. He also emphasized that the leaked text revealed that ‘U.S. negotiators have fought aggressively and, at least until Guam, successfully on behalf of Big Pharma.’ The civil society group Knowledge Ecology International published a leaked draft of the Intellectual Property Chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in August 2015, before the final deal. The director, James Love, was concerned that the text revealed that the United States ‘continues to be the most aggressive supporter of expanded intellectual property rights for drug companies.’ He was concerned that ‘the proposals contained in the TPP will harm consumers and in some cases block innovation.’ James Love feared: ‘In countless ways, the Obama Administration has sought to expand and extend drug monopolies and raise drug prices.’ He maintained: ‘The astonishing collection of proposals pandering to big drug companies make more difficult the task of ensuring access to drugs for the treatment of cancer and other diseases and conditions.’ Love called for a different approach to intellectual property and trade: ‘Rather than focusing on more intellectual property rights for drug companies, and a death-inducing spiral of higher prices and access barriers, the trade agreement could seek new norms to expand the funding
development of new pharmaceutical products that are or contain a biologic, as well as with a view to facilitating the timely availability of follow-on biosimilars, and to ensuring that the scope of application remains consistent with international developments regarding approval of additional categories of new pharmaceutical products that are or contain a biologic.’ In other words, there will be scope for a reconsideration of the protection of biologics at a future date. Article 18.50.3 of the Trans-Pacific Partnership provides a statement about access to essential medicines: ‘Notwithstanding paragraphs 1 and 2 and Article 18.52 (Biologics), a Party may take measures to protect public health in accordance with: (a) the Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health; (b) any waiver of any provision of the TRIPS Agreement granted by WTO Members in accordance with the WTO Agreement to implement the Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health and that is in force between the Parties; or (c) any amendment of the TRIPS Agreement to implement the Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health that enters into force with respect to the Parties.’ It is hard to know how these measures will operate in respect of access to essential medicines and the treatment of data protection, biologics, and trade secrets. There is also a side-letter between Vietnam and the United States on biologics. United States Republican Congressional Powerbroker Orrin Hatch was upset at the final text in respect of the protection of biologics in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He lamented: ‘I am afraid this deal appears to fall woefully short.’ He threatened to derail the agreement in the United States Congress if his demands were not met. Likewise, the House of Representatives
Parties’ patent laws, not their individual patent rules’. Thus, ‘The relevant question for the Tribunal is, therefore, whether Canadian patent law overall has a different effect from that of its trading partners.’ Fourth, the legal clinics conclude that ‘A functional comparison of Canadian, American, and Mexican patent law reveals that utility in Canadian law is functionally equivalent to (a) the United States requirements of the utility branch of enablement, and (b) the Mexican requirements that an invention be capable of industrial application, have an inventive step, and be sufficiently described.’ Professor Richard Gold and Michael Shortt have provided a comprehensive analysis of the patent issues at stake in the controversy. In a commentary, Professor Michael Geist from the University of Ottawa considers the controversy over the Eli Lilly dispute, Investor-State Dispute Settlement Rules, and the Canada-EU Trade Agreement. He concluded that ‘it may be in everyone’s interest to go back to the drawing board on CETA by eliminating ISDS altogether.’ In June 2013, the United States-based brand name pharmaceutical drug company Eli Lilly deployed an investor clause under the North American Free Trade Agreement to challenge Canada’s drug patent laws. Eli Lilly and Company is alleging that the invalidation of its Strattera and Zyprexa pharmaceutical patents under Canadian patent law is inconsistent with Canada’s commitments under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Eli Lilly alleged: Canada, through its own actions and through the actions of the Canadian courts, is responsible for measures inconsistent with its commitments under NAFTA Chapter Eleven, including without limitation: (1) the Judge-made law on utility (the ‘promise doctrine’) according to which the Canadian Courts have invalidated the Strattera and Zyprexa Patents; (2) the failure of the Government of Canada