TPP and policy

Is is still unclear what the new TPP will include but there are a few hints.

1. Biologics
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-06/pacific-nation-ministers-negotiators-lock-in-tpp-trade-deal/6829368

The US allows pharmaceutical companies an exclusive period of 12 years to use clinical data behind the approval for a new biological drug, and was pushing for that in the TPP.But Mr Robb said Australia would not move further than five years, despite the US pushing for a compromise eight-year period. In the end, US trade representative Michael Froman said the deal would offer at least five years' protection for biologic drugs, plus some time for other measures. He said the goal was to have a comparable outcome for such drugs across the 12 TPP countries. Ruth Lopert, from George Washington University in the US, told the ABC that the medicines involved were often those derived from living organisms and were amongst the most expensive on the market. "Many [of these] drugs are used for the treatment of various cancers, for multiple sclerosis, for many conditions, and because they're derived from living organisms they tend to be more complex to develop and they tend to carry much higher price tags," she said. "So there is a lot of money at stake in any potential delay to getting these biologics onto the PBS.[pharmaceutical benefits scheme] "

2. Data
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/tech-and-the-tpp-whats-at-stake-for-canadas-innovation-sector/article26711535/

The final agreement could also bar countries from requiring that data be stored on local servers. Many data localization initiatives evolved in response to heightened surveillance efforts by the United States in the post-9/11 era, Mr. Parsons says. But leaks from Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency was able to access information stored outside U.S. borders through agreements with its counterpart agencies in allied countries. “I remain somewhat dubious that data localization – from a practical sense, not a legal sense – actually provided a significantly higher degree of privacy.”
In any case, two Canadian provinces – British Columbia and Nova Scotia – have legislation that mandates certain types of government information be stored locally, he says, adding that those requirements could be challenged under the terms of the TPP.