4 October 2015 - Agreement on a far-reaching trade accord eluded negotiators for a dozen Pacific Rim nations on Saturday as the United States and Australia remained divided over commercial protections for drug companies, leaving tired and testers to agree to a last round of talks on Sunday.

The impasse over protections for advanced brand-name drugs prompted negotiators to put off settling a separate dispute over dairy exports. So the two issues, drugs and dairy products, became the final obstacles to concluding the largest regional trade agreement in history, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, after seven years of talks.

The long-simmering drug debate concerns so-called biologics, advanced medicines derived from living organisms and believed to hold promise in treating cancer. The United States and the pharmaceutical industry, not typically an Obama administration ally, have fought for companies to have exclusive rights to their research data for an extended period before the information is released and can be used to produce less costly generics. They argue that such protection is needed to give companies a financial incentive to innovate and produce new drugs.

For more details, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/business/trade-negotiations-stall-over-drugs-and-dairy-extending-talks-another-day.html?emc=edit_th_20151004&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=20088616&_r=0