Evaluation of prospective impacts of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement on Access to Medicine in Vietnam

Abstract

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), with current participation of 12 countries, aims at establishing a free trade area by enforcing common regulations in all aspects related to multilateral trade. However, the agreement possibly threats accessibility to medicines in developing countries such as Vietnam. A qualitative research using in-depth interview with 20 key experts combined with desk study of secondary data was carried out from July to December, 2012. This research aimed to gauge the prospective impact of various currently proposed articles in the proposal1 to access to medicines in Vietnam to provide evidence for advocacy for upcoming negotiation rounds. Study findings revealed that if the currently proposed articles are not changed, medicine price would increase, and access to advanced pharmaceutical technological developments would be hindered. Thus, it would create barriers to universal health coverage. Besides, government authorities would be burdened by having more responsibilities while current capacity is yet adequate which might lead to compromised work quality. Therefore, Vietnam should have a clear negotiating strategy to minimize negative impacts on its own access to medicines. This is a unique research at this time to provide evidence for Vietnam regarding pharmaceutical related articles in future rounds.