Drug trade: How will the Trans-Pacific Partnership affect our costs?

The much-discussed TTPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) will increase the cost of pharmaceutical drugs because the document to be signed disallows Pharmac (New Zealand's drug purchasing agency) to purchase ‘generic' drugs.

Our Prime Minister has stated that 'pharmaceuticals will be more expensive”, but not to the end user because the tax payer will pay the estimated millions of dollars extra that the patented products will cost Pharmac.

John Key, a prime advocate for ‘the market will provide', ‘free trade' and ‘competition' is now happy to scratch the back of multinationals and return the NZ taxpaying public to the ‘old days' of subsidies.

How does the farming community and the tax paying public feel about their National Government agreeing to subsidise the all-powerful multinational Pharmaceutical companies?

M Anderson, Tauranga