Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.
I am joined here today by Mr. Bob Hindle, who is also a board member of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Firstly, I'd like to say we're very grateful to the committee and many of its members for their continued support and interest in JDRF and their compassion for Canadians living with diabetes. In its 2008 report, this committee recommended the following, and I quote:
The federal government create a specialized fund for medical research for children’s health. In this regard, priority should be given to the establishment of a partnership with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation of Canada.
We are seeking a similar recommendation for budget 2010, which is why we're here today. We are the leading charitable funder and advocate of type 1 diabetes research worldwide, and in Canada we have been a strong voice for innovation, commercialization, and increased funding for diabetes research, an area of Canadian pride and excellence.
JDRF has been at the centre in the support and delivery of diabetes research advances that have improved the lives of children diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and of the many adults also living with this disease.
Our proposal is a unique funding partnership that combines $125 million from the federal government and a matching $50 million from JDRF. This is a funding requirement over a five-year period.
The benefits of this proposal to taxpayers, the government itself, and our important knowledge-based economy are numerous. Among them are the following: social benefits and a general reduction in the incidence and prevalence of diabetes, an implementation of a proven knowledge translation model, and creation of a virtual nationwide infrastructure that all disease groups can utilize. Fiscal benefits will be achieved through more effective use of government investment in a partnership that will catalyze results and bring Canada to the cutting edge of longer-term commercialization opportunities. Entirely consistent with both Advantage Canada and the government's science and technology strategy, this partnership will attract world-class researchers to our hospitals and universities and address squarely the issue of keeping these jobs in Canada. Canada will continue its legacy of being a world leader in diabetes research by substantively filling a critical gap in clinical research worldwide.
I ask the committee to take these benefits into consideration and the cross-departmental benefits of the partnership as you formulate your recommendations.
More precisely, I would like to highlight some specific industries that will benefit from JDRF's artificial pancreas project, an exciting project that will benefit from this partnership and provide much needed economic stimulus in many sectors of interest to this committee.
The impact of this project will involve and enhance the following key industries: firstly, pharmaceuticals. The delivery pathway of a new device—the artificial pancreas—builds upon JDRF's established record of partnerships with key players in the industry. JDRF set the standard in Canada by obtaining Eli Lilly's $400 million-plus U.S. investment into a Canadian company, Transition Therapeutics Inc. in Toronto. Pharmaceutical companies are now prepared to fund the majority of the financial burden to bring that product to market over the next five years. This partnership lends itself to generating increased economic activity around the commercialization of new technologies while retaining intellectual property rights in Canada.
Additionally, manufacturing will benefit because this device consists of two pre-existing technologies—an insulin pump and a continuous glucose monitor. The current task being addressed by JDRF is the mathematics that link these two devices, required to enable the communication via algorithms. Given that important pieces of the critical research required to bring this product to market will occur under this partnership, it also dramatically increases the likelihood of the finished product being manufactured in Canada, among several other sites worldwide.
In telecommunications, Canada's world-leading telecommunications companies have already indicated their intention to expand each company's existing partnerships with a world-leading Canadian academic institution, regarding the design and manufacture of two new functions for the artificial pancreas, which will be added to mobile communications devices.
This is a concrete and immediate example of how JDRF's unique business management of research has attracted intense interest from an entire industry previously unrelated to the commercialization of health technology devices.
This brings us to our recommendation. At JDRF, we are asking this committee to again recommend that the Government of Canada enter into a 10-year strategic partnership with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, funding an initial five years to the tune of $125 million to be matched with $50 million of JDRF money. Given the synergistic impact the proposed clinical trial network between JDRF and the Government of Canada would have on research and commercialization in Canada, I ask that you give serious consideration to including a favourable recommendation in your pre-budget report.
The time to act is now, and by working in partnership we can succeed.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.