Article Summary Since 2008, the United States Has Been Involved in Trade

Multiple Choice

Article Summary
Since 2008, the United States has been involved in trade negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) , a free trade agreement with 11 other countries on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. One area of the negotiations involves patents and intellectual property rights in the pharmaceutical industry. A number of developing countries have ignored international agreements concerning patents and intellectual property rights as a way to benefit their domestic pharmaceutical industries, to the detriment of those companies which have spent considerable time and money developing new medicines. For every 5,000 to 10,000 experimental drugs contemplated, only one will typically gain FDA approval, and this occurs only after up to 15 years of research at an average cost of more than $1 billion. Also, 30 percent of the U.S. workforce is either directly or indirectly employed in the pharmaceutical industry, so protection of these intellectual property rights is very important for the U.S. economy.
Source: Doug Schoen, "Intellectual Property Rights Matter," Forbes, September 24, 2013.

-Refer to the Article Summary.If these developing countries continue to ignore the international agreements which protect intellectual property rights,all of the following would most likely occur except

A) pharmaceutical companies would decrease investment in the development of more experimental drugs.
B) pharmaceutical companies would consider expanding operations to these developing countries.
C) fewer patents would be issued to pharmaceutical companies.
D) fewer dollars would be spent on the development of new medicines.