Pacific nation ministers and negotiators have locked in a major Pacific trade deal after days of marathon talks in the US city of Atlanta.
The 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership covers 40 per cent of the global economy and could reshape industries and influence everything from the price of cheese to the cost of cancer treatments.
A ministerial press conference to announce a deal was originally scheduled for Monday morning, Australian time, as reports emerged of a deal between Australia and the United States on intellectual property rules for new-generation medicines, but was subsequently delayed.
Japan's prime minister said late on Monday evening a dozen nations had reached "broad agreement" on the TPP, which aims to become the world's largest free-trade zone.
"It is a major outcome not just for Japan but also for the future of the Asia-Pacific," Shinzo Abe told reporters.
US president Barack Obama said the agreement "levelled the playing field" for farmers and manufacturers "by eliminating more than 18,000 taxes that various countries put on our products".
"It includes the strongest commitments on labour and the environment of any trade agreement in history, and those commitments are enforceable, unlike past agreements," Mr Obama said in a statement released by The White House.
Australian Trade Minister Andrew Robb had said before the deal was sealed that so-called "biologics" remained a live issue in the negotiations.
The United States allows pharmaceutical companies an exclusive period of 12 years to use clinical data behind the approval for a new biological drug, and were pushing for that in the TPP.
But Mr Robb said he would not move further than five years, despite the US pushing for a compromise eight-year period.
"We're talking about medicines that are derived from living organisms and many of these are amongst the most expensive drugs that we're seeing on the market today," Ruth Lopert, from George Washington University in the US, told the ABC.
"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.
"And currently, when follow-on products are available on the market — what we call biosimilars — in Australia they trigger an automatic 60 per cent price reduction on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
"So there is a lot of money at stake in any potential delay to getting these biologics onto the PBS."
She said the text of the agreement would not be available for public perusal for several weeks.
News ABC
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