Behind the struggle surrounding Israel's inclusion on the "watch list" of nations of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, naming those that violate intellectual property rights, lies a multibillion-dollar interest.
This is, in fact, a struggle between Israel's Teva, the world's largest generic drug manufacturer, and pharmaceutical companies in the U.S., which are investing a great deal of effort in stopping Teva.
In fact, take Teva out of the story, and it is doubtful that Israel would have been of much interest to the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR).
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Teva is very dominant on the American market, where it is eating away at the revenues of large pharma companies.
In addition, patents on pharmaceuticals representing billions of dollars are due to expire in coming years, and American pharma companies are doing their best to hinder the inexorable process of their products becoming generics, and being sold at much lower prices.
Israeli generic companies, and Teva foremost, have bitter complaints against the USTR.
"The U.S. Trade Representative has become a pawn of large pharma companies" and that it "operates in a manner promoting the interests of large pharma companies at any cost, while distorting the truth,", a Teva'vice president was quoted as saying two weeks ago, even before the updated watch list was published.
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