itxtme:Geektastic:frankv:Paracetamol is long off-patent - the TPP wouldn't affect availability or price of branded or generic common drugs like that. Some drugs are even cheaper than the subsidised prescription charge - cheaper to buy over the counter if not restricted than at the set price.
Bear in mind that the US has been constantly increasing patent times, to the extent that they're now 70 years after the inventor's death.
So any new drug will NOT be available patent-free until well after it is obsolete.
I don't suppose it occurred to anyone to create a drugs company in NZ to benefit from that?
Huh? Who would have thought drug manufacturing was so easy! One good example is the new age hepatitis treatment drugs. They are insanely expensive, as in prohibitively so, however the evidence for them is very strong. By increasing patents effectively more people will die, and more people will live with horrific disease complications as NZ cant afford to fund them. We are not talking about a drug price increasing by $100. In some cases we are talking tens of thousands of dollars per patient. And increasing access time for suffers by a further decade (or more maybe, its all a big secret). To top that off here is a nice article on the sky high profits of drug companys to enjoy. Phizer for example (biggest US drug company) had a 42% profit margin in 2013!!!
It's no harder here than anywhere else.
The NZ bush is full of potential drugs: I know someone selling Totara extract to L'Oreal and aspirin came from tree bark originally I think.