The World Trade Organization (WTO) should use the weeks ahead to focus on delivering an ambitious and productive trade and health agenda as it prepares for the Twelfth Ministerial Conference (MC12) on Nov. 30 – Dec. 3. MC12 presents an important opportunity for WTO members to advance meaningful trade and health policies that build on the WTO’s core principles of openness, fairness and predictability by strengthening global trade and cooperation to help combat COVID-19 and prepare for future challenges.
The biopharmaceutical industry has long supported a strong international trading system rooted in the WTO’s core principles. Biopharmaceutical companies depend on an open and rules-based global trading system to ensure that innovative pharmaceuticals (including vaccines, therapies and certain diagnostics) can be developed, manufactured and distributed to health systems and patients around the world.
To build on existing WTO initiatives, PhRMA, in collaboration with major industry association partners in Europe and the UK, published a paper concerning industry priorities related to the WTO’s trade and health agenda. The paper recommends that WTO members capitalize on MC12 to:
- Take timely and critical actions to immediately liberalize trade in health products and the inputs and equipment required to develop and manufacture those products, including: (1) eliminating export restrictions, (2) eliminating tariffs, (3) improving trade facilitation and (4) strengthening regulator cooperation and capacity building.
- Confirm the central role of the WTO in strengthening and future-proofing the open and rules-based international trading system for the life sciences sector.
- Commit to advancing a robust trade and health agenda that will address health-related trade issues both immediately and more regularly in the future.
Strengthening global trade policy through these initiatives would support additional innovation and collaboration to combat COVID-19 and other international health challenges. The biopharmaceutical industry stands ready to support WTO members in advancing immediate and future working agendas to bolster the global trading system. Industry’s around-the-clock efforts to address the coronavirus demonstrate that collaboration delivers meaningful impact and improves the health of patients worldwide.
For a more detailed perspective on the needs and recommended actions to support the international trading environment, please read our multi-association industry paper.
Douglas Petersen
Douglas Petersen is PhRMA’s Vice President for international trade. Previously, he was international trade counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, an international trade attorney with White & Case LLP and a trade policy analyst at the Cato Institute. He received a law degree from New York University, a graduate degree from the London School of Economics, and undergraduate degrees from the University of Utah.
Douglas Petersen
Tariffs on medicines would harm American competitiveness, industry and patients
Strong Trade Policies Protect American Workers and Biopharmaceutical Innovation
USTR remembers—three years later—that it announced a trade initiative with Europe
PhRMA submission calls for USTR to correct course on trade policy, enforcement
No Region Left Behind: USTR expands its unambitious trade agenda to the western hemisphere
World Trade Week 2024: Time for a more ambitious U.S. trade agenda
Why won’t USTR strengthen medical supply chains with America’s allies?
PhRMA 2024 Special 301 submission: USTR needs to support American innovation, global access to medicines
Biden Administration’s Indo Pacific trade dialogue is a missed opportunity to bolster American exports, innovation
PhRMA submission: USTR needs more ambition to combat unfair trade barriers
The Biden Administration has failed to advance an inclusive, worker-centered trade agenda
Four ways that America’s biopharmaceutical industry supports jobs and fuels economic growth
U.S. biopharmaceutical exports support jobs, innovation
Will the administration capitalize on the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework to drive medical innovation?
Biden administration should prioritize innovation in U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade
PhRMA submission to USTR calls for urgent defense of American innovation abroad
Partnerships are driving global COVID-19 treatment access
The dangers of expanding the TRIPS waiver
Biden Administration details inadequate protection of American intellectual property and foreign barriers to innovation abroad
PhRMA encourages Biden administration to pursue ambitious Indo-Pacific Economic Framework
PhRMA submission to 2022 National Trade Estimate Report underscores need for pro-innovation U.S. trade policy to combat COVID-19
New polling shows Americans are sounding the alarm on the TRIPS IP waiver
The Biden Administration allows politics to upend a pragmatic pandemic response
American leadership on innovation policy is essential to global health progress
Preserving U.S. innovation worldwide is more important than ever
U.S. trade policy must prioritize American biopharmaceutical innovation and patient access
The continued imperative to protect U.S. innovation worldwide
Trump administration must defend and protect U.S. innovation
PhRMA submission to 2020 National Trade Estimate Report: Urgent action required to protect U.S. biopharmaceutical innovation
Setting the record straight on international reference pricing
World Trade Month: How we can expand world-class pro-innovation standards
Special 301 submission calls for a level playing field for American innovators
Fact Check: Biologics, regulatory data protection and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement
PhRMA submission to the 2019 National Trade Estimate Report urges action to protect U.S. biopharmaceutical innovation
PhRMA submission to HHS on blueprint to lower drug prices and reduce out-of-pocket costs
To continue to drive the innovation economy and exports, American biopharmaceutical sector depends on fair trade agreements
Poll respondents appreciate economic benefits of innovation and call for more protections
As U.S. looks to modernize NAFTA, strong enforcement of existing obligations should be a top priority
Foreign government price setting by any name harms innovation and access to medicines
Compulsory licensing: A misused and abused international trade law
Government-imposed price controls threaten innovation and access
ICYMI: Ubl weighs in on how fair trade protects US biopharmaceutical innovation
Illegal trade barriers discriminate against U.S. innovators
Trading fair means upholding the law: A focus on patents
Enforcing unmet trade obligations protects U.S. innovation
NAFTA tribunal fails to rule on Canada’s patent utility doctrine
PhRMA urges USTR to protect American innovators abroad
Strengthening the WTOs global trade and health agenda
Trade
Strengthening the WTOs global trade and health agenda
Strengthening the WTOs global trade and health agenda