Bloomberg examines how a trade agreement being negotiated by leaders of the nine Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) countries — Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States — could potentially make it more difficult for people in TPP nations to get new generic drugs and may impact U.S.-led global efforts to tackle HIV/AIDS as outlined by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a recent speech at the NIH.

Advocates say proposed provisions related to the trade agreement could keep drug prices high in TPP nations, but Nkenge Harmon, a U.S. trade office spokesperson, said in an e-mail, “The TPP intellectual property proposals ‘are designed to promote greater certainty for innovators, generic manufacturers and patients,'” according to the news service. Bloomberg also notes that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and three other Democratic lawmakers wrote about the issue in an October 19 letter to the U.S. trade representative (Gaouette, 11/21). The letter states, “There would be significant concern if action through TPP could delay access to generic medicines which may result in higher costs to the U.S. government to reach PEPFAR treatment goals or could result in removing patients from treatment” (10/19).