Author: Philip Stevens, Director of Geneva Network
In the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, the U.S. and Japan have proposed that TPP trading nations increase their period of regulatory data protection (RDP) for biologic medicines to align with practice in other countries. These proposals have been strongly opposed by a number of academics who claim that such a move would significantly increase public spending on medicines. This study examines the historical impact of changes to the length of RDP for new drugs on levels of pharmaceutical and total health spending in Canada and Japan.
