Evolving trade policy and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: Does it threaten Vietnam's access to medicine and its progress towards scaling up HIV prevention, treatment and care?

Abstract

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) has undergone 18 rounds of secretive negotiation between the USA and 11 Asia-Pacific countries. Aiming at a free trade area, this multilateral trade proposal covers all aspects of commercial relations among the countries involved. Despite some anticipated positive impacts in trade, specific articles in this proposal's intellectual property and transparency chapters might negatively impact access to medicine, in general, and to antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, in particular, in Vietnam. Drawing on a desk review and qualitative in-depth interviews with 20 key informants from government, academia, hospitals and civil society, we analyse various provisions of the proposal being negotiated leaked after the 14th round of negotiations in September 2012. Findings suggest that the TPP could lead to increased monopoly protection and could limit technological advancements within the local pharmaceutical manufacturing industry, resulting in higher medicine prices in Vietnam. This outcome would have a significant impact on Vietnam's ability to achieve goals for HIV prevention, treatment and care, and create barriers to universal health-care coverage. This research provides unique evidence for Vietnam to advocate for more equitable pharmaceutical provisions in and to raise awareness of the implications of the TPP among the pharmaceutical stakeholder community in Vietnam.

Keywords:

• Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)
• access to medicine
• ARVs
• intellectual properties
• medicine price
• Vietnam

Acknowledgement

We thank Oxfam America for financial support and technical assistance during the research project.

Notes

1. For the purposes of this study, we focus solely on the affordability aspect of A2M.

2. For the purposes of this study, ‘essential medicine’ is distinguished from ‘generics’ when it is actually a subgroup of generics. All essential medicines are generics, but not all generics are necessarily essential medicines. This distinction is based on the Essential Medicines List issued by the Vietnam MOH (5th ed.), which is based on WHO recommendations.