Thu 30 Jul 2015 In: New Zealand Daily News View at Wayback View at NDHA
Kevin Hague says he expects the TPPA deal to ultimately have a substantial impact on HIV medications. “As HIV is an area where lots of new agents are being developed, I expect the impact to become substantial,” says Kevin Hague. The Green Party rainbow issues spokesman, and longtime advocate for people with HIV, says according to the draft agreement, there will be two key changes for Pharmac. He says some drugs will have longer patent times, so prices will stay higher for longer. Hague says there will also be multiple small changes to the way Pharmac operates, giving the industry more points to use to challenge its processes, eroding its negotiating position, and resulting in higher drug prices across the board. “We don’t know how the deal will impact on already funded drugs, but everything new will be more expensive,” Hague tells GayNZ.com. He says while the Government has stated the extra cost will be small and will be funded by an increase to its health system funder Vote Health, it has failed to ensure that budget keeps pace with inflation and increased need, and has progressively eroded the share used for pharmaceuticals. “So while it’s technically possible that the Government could increase the Budget for medicines to make the TPPA cost-neutral, I think the evidence suggests this is very unlikely to happen,” Hague says. “Instead we can expect that the Budget won’t stretch as far. I think we will see slower access to new medicines, and we may also see tightening of the conditions for the use of medicines so that even existing drugs are harder to get.” The Green MP says there is also an issue around investor-state dispute settlement that affects medicines directly. “The draft essentially says that an agency like Pharmac cannot start using generics if their manufacturers are facing legal action over patents. Which suggests a bit of a strategy for the big pharmaceutical companies. So access to generics will also be slowed. “As HIV is an area where lots of new agents are being developed, I expect the impact to become substantial.”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 30th July 2015 - 9:54am