Scumbag alert Alycia – GetUp!

Scumbag isn’t a word thrown around lightly, but that’s the general assessment of this American CEO.

(He’s the one on the right.)

Overnight, the price of a drug used for treating people living with HIV/AIDS jumped from $13.50 a pill to $750. That’s an increase of more than 5500%! The CEO of the company, which recently acquired the rights to the drug, defended the price hike as motivated by profit.¹

This is exactly the type of shameless price-gouging we could see if Australia signs onto the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership deal (TPP). Trade Minister Robb will risk our access to affordable medicine if he caves in to the demands of the big US pharmaceutical companies to extend their monopolies over medicines.

Mr Robb is set to go to Atlanta, Georgia this week to potentially seal the TPP deal. So we need to act quickly to make sure he has no room to negotiate on affordable medicine for Australians.

Call on Minister Robb to stick to his guns and reject any deal that will put affordable medicines at risk.

Let’s call the TPP out for what it really is. It’s not about trade, it’s about protecting the interests of Big Business. With the TPP in place, Big Pharma will tighten their grip on medicine prices, by preventing competition from cheaper generic medicines in Australia (so much for “free markets”).

Come October, Australia will either be a signatory to the world’s largest corporate power grab (or “regional trade deal”) – or negotiations will stall again. The more political pressure we can pour on Minister Robb at home, the less room he has to trade away our access to affordable medicine. And that could help the entire deal fall over.

Will you add your name to the petition and let Minister Robb know it’s ordinary Australians who rely on medicines, who need protecting – not Big Pharma: https://www.getup.org.au/protect-medicines

Let’s give Big Pharma a taste of their own medicine!

Alycia, Mark, Nat and Daney for the GetUp team

Sources
[1] Entrepreneur defends decision to raise price of life-saving drug 50-fold, The Guardian, 22 September 2015