Industry committee  The R and D we are reporting is that which qualifies under the PMPRB, and it's written into, I believe, the Patent Act. It was the SR and ED definition as at 1987. It's been a while since I've looked at the detail. The SR and ED definition is that it has to be a cost directly or

Industry committee  As I say, the definition we have to comply with is from the Income Tax Act. It does not allow that , so therefore it couldn't be included in that number. Also, the restriction is that it has to be R and D performed in Canada. So R and D performed outside the country would certain

Industry committee  Thank you for your question. I don't think your question is naive at all. We get asked that question quite often. I think it comes down to the fact that brand companies have tried to get into the generic business. As a matter of fact, some of them are in it. Our company tried th

Industry committee  Yes.

Industry committee  It's a different business. You're selling to a different market; you're dealing with a different distribution system. And the big thing that we have in Canada is an automatic substitution policy at the provincial level, which says that the lowest price gets the market. So what ha

Industry committee  I don't think so. I think they're a global effort. Again, going back to our experience, does one jurisdiction have the lead in the development? Yes. Is Canada in a position to get that lead? Yes. I've identified about half a dozen where we have been.

Industry committee  The actual industry figure is about $1.2 billion. The $120 million was my company, Merck Frosst.

Industry committee  In certain areas. I know our particular company is finding it tougher to get MDs, especially with expertise around clinical development. I guess that's understandable, because I think we've all experienced shortages in family physicians. There's a big shortage, a big demand for t

Industry committee  Sure. First of all, this has been an ongoing debate, and I think we need to put it into perspective. In Canada we need all the sectors. I think the generics play a very vital role, as do we, and there's another sector that's not here, called biotech. In the continuum as it curr

Industry committee  PMPRB's mandate, when it was originally set up, was to ensure that price increases of patented medicines did not exceed the consumer price index. That was its mandate, and the industry was forced to accept that. What we've seen over the past 20 years is that they have moved to wh

Industry committee  Just to clarify, I think what you're referring to is that in the PMPRB report they break down that total R and D spent. Of the $1.2 billion, they categorize it as “discovery”, “applied”, and “other”. I think the issue is the discovery component, that $232 million, which represent

Industry committee  Normand can talk to the industry level. In terms of investment in Canada and actually products produced, we at Merck Frosst have a very large therapeutic research centre in Kirkland, with about 300 world-class citizens. We've developed about half a dozen products there over the

Industry committee  Actually no, I'm not.

Industry committee  In particular, there are a number of public policy factors that affect Canada's ability to attract the investments critical to ongoing pharmaceutical innovation. We put forward recommendations in our submission to address these public policy factors today, and we will focus on fo