Drug prices won’t rise? Rubbish, says Klang MP

by  Sheith Khidhir Bin Abu Bakar  November 27, 2015     Source : Free Malaysia Today

PETALING JAYA: Klang MP Charles Santiago today censured a senior official of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) for claiming that medicine prices will not go up when the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) comes into force.

Reacting to a statement made yesterday by J Jayasiri, MITI’s Deputy Director-General for Strategy and Monitoring, Santiago said prices would remain high as long as protection was in place.

“Protection means that there will be a form of monopoly,” he told FMT. He cited the case of Jordan, where he said prices went up 17 per cent after protection was put in place.
He pointed out that the TPPA chapter on Intellectual Property Rights gave room for patent extension. This would allow prices to remain high for an extended period, he said.

He rubbished Jayasiri’s claim that patent extensions were unlikely because of the efficiency of Malaysia’s process of patent and marketing approval for drugs.

“That’s a baseless claim,” he said. “You can’t just say that you’re efficient and expect people to trust that.”

Santiago also pointed out that Deputy United States Trade Representative Robert Holleyman recently stated that his government expected TPP countries to provide eight years of data exclusivity and not five.

“Malaysia thinks its commitment is five years, but the US has told us that it’s not five, but eight years,” he said. “These guys were sleeping on the job.”