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All too often, pharmaceutical companies exploit flawed intellectual property systems by re-patenting old drugs for new uses. This lets them keep drug prices artificially high without necessarily inventing new medicines. And when new drugs are invented, they are often priced beyond the reach of patients. For example, a new treatment for Hepatitis C, Sovaldi, can cure up to 90 per cent of cases, but it costs as much as $84,000. Prices like these form part of a broader trend which has seen drug costs triple in the Unites States since 1987.

These imbalances cost developed nations billions of dollars every year. But when this flawed model is exported to the developing world under the guise of free trade, the costs are measured in lives lost.

Such was the case in the late 1990s as AIDS began to ravage Africa, while the pharmaceutical industry, backed by Western governments, demanded over $10,000 per patient annually for drugs. Thankfully, a broad coalition, including Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), fought back leading to cost reductions of nearly 99 per cent. Generic first-line AIDS drugs now cost $140 a year and 12 million people are receiving life-saving treatment.

But if that battle was won, the war for access to medicines is at risk of being lost. Since the 1990s, a number of trade deals have reduced access to medicines by driving up drug prices. However, some provisions being considered in the TPP negotiations are so damaging this agreement could belong in a class of its own.