Thank you very much for the opportunity to present for Rx&D, Canada's Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies, which represent about 50 research-based companies, with well over 15,000 men and women involved in high-level research in Canada.
We create, deliver, and research new innovative medicines that save lives, improve the health care system, and I believe will add to the sustainability of our health care system, which incidentally every government is looking at. Appropriate use of our medicines is part of that solution.
We're particularly pleased to share the panel today with the Rick Hansen Foundation, which is an excellent example of some of the research on spinal cord injury and shows a great collaboration with industry. We are one of the largest investors in health research in the country, about $1.5 billion a year and in the last 20 years well over $20 billion, and we are the largest private sector investors in health research.
In a written submission to you, we talked about three areas.
First, we need an intellectual property regime that enables us to be more competitive internationally.
This IP regime will make us more and more competitive. We've also asked to change to an expanded definition in the SR and ED tax credits to get to OECD levels because Canadians' definitions are relatively limited and don't catch all the research that is being done in the country.
We believe improvements in Health Canada's regulatory review process for drugs and biologics should be included in the 2012 budget. I want to underline that great progress is being made in Health Canada, but I think this area has to be addressed.
Let me focus my comments on the issue of IP, intellectual property, because that's the cornerstone, the pierre angulaire of our industry. There's a huge opportunity for Canada right now during the CETA negotiations, and frankly before they're even concluded, to create, number one, an effective right of appeal mechanism for innovators. Right now in Canada in front of the courts, generics have a right of appeal if their challenges are rejected. Innovators cannot. So I want to impress upon the committee that it's just basic fairness in front of our courts.
The second area is to increase our existing data protection regulations from eight to 10 years. Europe has 10 years. We already have eight, and I congratulate the government in 2006 that moved in this direction. So it is not from zero to 10, it's from eight to 10, to be globally competitive.
Finally, Canada is the only country in the OECD group that doesn't have something called patent term restoration. If there are delays in clinical and regulatory, you can add it later to a patent. Those three areas would have a huge impact. They're not major advancements. We've done the heavy lifting. These are incremental changes, but we could have a fundamentally positive impact. You are looking at how to increase our economy. This will bring in new dollars. You saw a phenomenal increase in the mid-1980s when Canada did move on IPs for the first time. We were investing a little under $100 million and now we're a little over $1.3 billion, $1.5 billion when you count our community projects.
So the cornerstone of our economy, I believe, can be innovation. The IP rights that we're looking at right now will help protect the investment that takes well over a billion dollars, 10 to 15 years, and it can help us. We invest about $100 billion in R and D around the world. Canada gets the $1.3 billion. We would like to grow that. So our message here is if we create the environment within Canada, our industry can bring those investment dollars right into our universities, right into our health care system. These will be great jobs and really help the health care system, with 75% of those dollars in clinical trials.
When people say we can't move on that, I say the numbers speak for themselves. We have grown, a huge increase over the last few years of 1,500%. There's room for generics in this too. They have grown 2,000% in terms of the business. So our message today is if we create an environment of intellectual property, the research-based pharmaceutical industry can increase our investment. We want to. It's our commitment to the country. We can bring in those innovative medicines that all your constituents are looking for that can improve our quality of life and ensure we have a sustainable Canadian health care system that we can be very proud of.
I thank you for the opportunity to highlight these three areas that are important to our community.
Thank you.