A series of stories from Jamie Love at KEI highlight the troubling cozy relationship between pharmaceutical companies and the US government in trying to raise drug prices in other countries — which very likely will come at the expense of the health of citizens in those countries. The first is about the USTR and its position that drugs in Taiwan are too cheap:
The United States has also continued to engage Taiwan on concerns raised by the pharmaceutical and medical device industries that Taiwan’s procedures for medical product pricing and reimbursement fail to adequately recognize the value of innovative medical products for patients in Taiwan.
Read that again, because that’s a pretty scary statement. Yes, Taiwan has worked hard to make sure that health care is affordable in that country, and the USTR is acting on behalf of corporate interests to tell them that’s a mistake. Wow.
Then, over in India, it appears that the USPTO is putting on co-branded events with Pfizer about drugs, health care and patents. Along with this, Love points to growing concerns from folks in India about a project between George Washington University and various pharmaceutical companies to “train” Indian politicians and judges on the importance of patents in pharma. Except, of course, that’s very much in dispute. Many studies have shown that patents on pharma do more harm than good — especially in countries with big healthcare issues.
There are plenty of important issues to debate over health care and patents, but it seems quite troubling when the US seems to have pretty much let the pharmaceutical companies run the entire debate.
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