Don’t trade away Malaysians’ access to affordable medicines
In the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff wars and growing global trade volatility, countries across the Global South, Malaysia included, have turned to free trade agreements (FTAs) to diversify markets and reduce economic risk.
During the Special Parliamentary Session to discuss the US tariffs on 5th May, Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim announced that Malaysia has concluded an FTA with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), comprising Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. This latest agreement, known as MEEPA, comes on the heels of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a recent deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and alongside ongoing negotiations with the European Union (EU), and under ASEAN. Now we are told bilateral talks are going on with the U.S. to soften the tariff blow.
But there is growing concern that these agreements — especially those involving developed nations — are less about mutually beneficial market access and more about imposing far-reaching rules that limit the autonomy of developing countries to chart their own development paths.
Beyond Trade: Restricting Policy Space
So-called trade deals over the past 25 years increasingly seek to embed rules on intellectual property (IP), foreign investment, government procurement, and domestic regulation — rules that can severely restrict a country’s ability to promote local industries, regulate capital flows, or protect for public interest including health. Powerful countries shape these deals to reinforce their own economic interests or for geopolitical reasons especially in the case of the U.S, often at the expense of sovereignty and policy flexibility in the Global South.
Malaysia has already conceded significant ground in the CPTPP, and in that agreement the worst of the TRIPS Plus provisions have been suspended after Trump 1.0 walked out. The risk of repeating the CPTPP mistake and now even including damaging IP commitments looms with MEEPA and future deals.
Once Malaysia’s IP laws are changed if MEEPA sticks with it, ALL countries will benefit including U.S. corporations not just the 4 EFTA countries.
The High Cost of IP Concessions
The inclusion of an IP chapter in MEEPA, as reported on EFTA’s website, is alarming. Agreements with Canada, the Gulf Cooperation Council and Southern African Customs Union have no IP chapter.
While the full text remains undisclosed, there is concern that MEEPA may contain TRIPS-plus obligations — IP rules that go beyond the standards set by the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).
Malaysia’s National Industrial Master Plan (NIMP) has acknowledged that patent monopolies under TRIPS have already contributed to high medicine prices. TRIPS-plus provisions — such as patent term extensions, data exclusivity, patent linkage, and restrictions on the use of public health safeguards — would exacerbate this problem, driving up medicine prices and delaying the entry of more affordable generics.
These are not hypothetical risks. In countries like Colombia and Jordan, similar provisions have led to sharp increases in medicine prices and strained public health budgets. Colombia is expected to spend an additional US$756 million in 2025 alone due to such rules. In Jordan, drug prices rose by at least 20%, consuming a quarter of the national health budget. A 2022 review of 91 studies found a consistent trend: stronger pharmaceutical monopolies created by TRIPS-plus measures are linked to higher drug prices, longer delays in generic entry, and increased healthcare costs — burdens that fall heaviest on patients and public health systems.
Malaysia’s Health Sovereignty at Risk
Malaysia’s experience with public health crises like HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C highlight the value of compulsory licensing, an important flexibility under TRIPS, which enabled imports of much cheaper generic medicine prices and free treatment.
Adopting TRIPS-plus rules would limit Malaysia’s ability to respond to future crises and undermine its pharmaceutical industry, which supplies over a third of national needs and can manufacture most essential drugs. Local producers are key to our health sovereignty and to achieving pharmaceutical self-sufficiency — a lesson reinforced by pandemic-era supply chain disruptions. Restrictive IP rules discourage local R&D and generic competition, risking higher costs and reduced access amid rising medical inflation.
A Call for Transparency and Accountability
Malaysia, is already a net importer of intellectual property. TRIPS-plus concessions benefit foreign multinationals and strain our economy and healthcare. The UN Special Rapporteurs on human rights and the World Health Organization warn against such rules, yet Malaysia’s trade negotiations remain opaque, with agreements announced only after conclusion and lacking public or parliamentary scrutiny. A transparent, health-focused, and democratic trade policy process is urgently needed. We call on the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry (MITI) and the Government to:
- Request for removal of the IP chapter in MEEPA.
- Publish draft treaty texts during negotiations and before signing, to allow proper review by Parliament and civil society. In this regard, the EU has since 2015, published its negotiating text proposals. There is no reason why Malaysia cannot do the same.
- Conduct public consultations with all relevant stakeholders — including health professionals, consumer groups, trade unions, and environmental advocates.
- Ensure pre- and post-human rights impact assessments for all trade and investment agreements.
- Include the Ministry of Health centrally in all trade negotiations that could affect healthcare access and affordability
Health Must Come First
While pursuing trade agreements for economic growth, we must not repeat past mistakes by trading away our policy space for vague short-term diplomatic gains or vague promises of investment. Malaysia must adopt a clear position: no TRIPS Plus, and trade deals must not undermine our right to affordable healthcare, or the development of a robust domestic pharmaceutical industry to reduce our current heavy reliance on imports.
The stakes are too high to remain silent. Now is the time to put the nation’s health at the heart of trade.
Mohideen Abdul Kader
President
Consumers’ Association of Penang
Letter to the Editor, 7 May 2025