Health committee  No, it is rather well defined. Promotion, for example free medicines given to doctors, is not included in research and development. So it is rather well defined.

Health committee  No, it covers clinical research as well.

Health committee  We suppose that it is because pharmaceutical companies do not have what we call blockbuster medicines that they can sell at high prices and so they are simply bringing minute changes to their existing medicines. They want to give some return to their shareholders. So they are sort of sending trial balloons, so to speak.

Health committee  As I understand it, the agreed-upon responsibility was to put 10% of their gross total sales into R and D in Canada--

Health committee  --and they started out close to that. Then they came up to it and exceeded it, and now they're tending to drift back down.

Health committee  We could give you 2005; it's 8.8%.

Health committee  The year before was roughly the same...8.3%, 8.8%. As we go further into the past, it was 9%, 10%, and there were even some 11% years here. In the past four or five years there has been a trend towards less R and D expenditure as a percentage of total gross sales.

Health committee  No; we have no such authority.

Health committee  There may be many complex factors relating to that, and as you just heard earlier, there are fewer breakthrough drugs. Is that a reflection of less research, or what? I'm not really sure.

Health committee  Some companies do.

Health committee  They are obliged to report to us. I can't tell you the technical details of that, but some companies do better than others. If you asked a large drug manufacturer why they aren't investing more in research and development in Canada they may not tell you, or they may tell you it's because they find the regulatory environment on prices too oppressive.

Health committee  We were asked in 2005, after the national pharmaceutical strategy initiative got started, to start reporting on non-patented medicines--generics. We are wondering whether we will be given greater responsibility in that area. In terms of the patented medicines themselves, we feel we have sufficient tools to do the work.

Health committee  We report on them.

Health committee  That's part of this NPPDP initiative. We're asked to report and we put out quarterly reports. Some of the findings in these reports are fairly interesting. You may be surprised.

Health committee  We get very few complaints from the public. We get some complaints from provincial drug plans, but mostly the reason we're having these hearings and more investigations is that there's a tendency toward non-compliance with our guidelines. We believe the reason is there are fewer blockbuster drugs.