USMCA: Protect Patients, Not Big Pharma Profits
On July 1st, 2026, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will be up for review for the first time since its initiation in 2020. This review is a critical chance to reform the intellectual property provisions in the USMCA that reduce access to life-saving medications. The most effective way to protect global health is to remove all intellectual property provisions from the USMCA, which act as an unnecessary expansion of patent protections beyond existing international standards.
The internationally-agreed upon TRIPS agreement set already generous terms for regulation of intellectual property, including 20 years of patent protections (1). Since TRIPS, the emphasis on prioritizing IP protections over patient lives has already hindered access to life-saving medications, especially during global health crises such as the HIV/AIDS epidemic (2). The USMCA added further protections for pharmaceutical companies beyond what was established in TRIPS, which proved especially harmful to public health during the COVID-19 pandemic, where IP protections led to delayed access to life-saving vaccinations and medications, especially within Mexico (3).
Removing expansive patent protections provides economic benefits as well. In 2024, the use of generic and biosimilar medications saved around $467 billion dollarsfor the United States, which included savings for patients, employers, and the healthcare system (4). For Mexico, studies have shown that doubling generic medication penetration could save around 2.55 billion MXN annually (5). And in Canada, government data has shown that shifting from brand to generic drugs reduced costs by around $331 million CAD in a single year (2022-2023) (6).
To help UAEM fight for a USMCA that prioritizes patients over profits:
Reach out to your elected officials and urge them to support the removal of IP provisions in the USMCA
Educate your chapters and university members
Share our posts and speak up about this issue on social media with the hashtags #FixtheUSMCA and #USMCAforpeoplenotprofits