Health Committee on Oct. 18th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Your time is running out. Do you have a question?

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

If it's running out, that's fine. I'm done.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

You've got 15 seconds.

[Barbara Sabourin]

We are trying to move into an electronic environment in the review process, and that will save us money, such as on storage costs for paper. A drug submission is quite enormous, so to remove those storage costs is substantial. It also saves the industry. It fits into the idea of reducing the burden.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you both very much.

We'll now go to Ms. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would also like to welcome our witnesses here today. It's been very informative, and I've appreciated the questions that my colleagues have asked.

Dr. Beaudet, I found the series of examples that you gave in your opening remarks about the different technologies that are being developed, like using a smart phone instead of a stethoscope, pretty incredible.

I had an opportunity to tour the simulation learning centre at the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology campus in Saskatoon. The simulation centre includes treatment and assessment rooms, an apartment with cutaway walls for observation, a birthing unit, control rooms, and debriefing rooms. Patients are computerized mannequins. They are programmed to react as students administer CPR and drug therapies, intubate and ventilate, and insert IVs. It was incredible to see what can be done with technology in terms of training our health professionals.

Would you be able to tell me the areas of research that CIHR has invested in to support innovation by cutting red tape without compromising the safety of Canadians?

[Dr. Alain Beaudet]

I think, quite frankly, that CIHR doesn't have a lot of red tape. Our operating budget is between 5% and 6% of our total budget, which is among the thinnest operating budgets in the world for an agency of our type. I don't think there's a lot of red tape.

How do we manage that? We have the entire world research community working for us. All of the proposals we receive are adjudicated by peer review, i.e. they are reviewed by experts, mainly from Canada of course, but often they are also international experts. We don't always have the necessary expertise in Canada, or if it's a small base and we don't want to have conflicts of interest, we go outside.

It's marvellous to see how internationally we have a positive response to review the applications. It's a narrow door. We're funding not even 20% of the proposals that are submitted to us for review and funding.

It is highly competitive, but such is science. Science is highly competitive. We fund only the very best. I can assure you that your tax dollars are really well invested with us.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you.

How is my time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

You've got two minutes.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

I'm glad you mentioned that our tax dollars are very well invested.

How are these investments in emerging technologies aiding in Canada's economic recovery and helping to create wealth and jobs?

[Dr. Alain Beaudet]

I gave a partial answer to that question to your colleague. It's aiding through the grants directly because a lot of people are hired on the grants. That's certainly an important economic investment. As I said, some of these discoveries will lead to patents. Patents will lead to start-ups, and of course the start-up will attract investments.

In fact, just last year we had foreign investments in health research for over $800 million, and private sector investment in health research for $1.5 billion. That is creating jobs. Then there's the advantage of having a healthy workforce in the economy and a workforce that remains healthy later.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Dr. O'Rourke, you wanted to make a comment as well.

Mrs. Block, is that okay?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Sure.

[Dr. Brian O'Rourke]

If I may, in speaking to that first question, and probably a little to the second question, Dr. Beaudet mentioned earlier about personalized medicine and the work they're doing with Genome Canada. A great innovation is that they've started to recognize that it's not just about producing the new technology; it's about having somebody actually wanting to use it and pay for it.

With regard to these demonstration projects that he talked about, I met about two weeks ago with the CEO of Genome Canada and Genome B.C. These are technologies that we might not see for four or five years, yet they're already starting to have the dialogue with us about how they can make these products useful, from a payer's perspective.

I think that's an interesting approach, rather than just introducing this and making us determine whether we want to pay for it at the time of its introduction.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Mr. Menegakis.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I also want to extend a warm welcome to our witnesses for appearing before us today and for their very informative testimony.

I'd like to start with you, Dr. Beaudet, if I may. Many researchers and medical professionals would argue that nanomedicine is the way of the future and researchers have only begun to scratch the surface. I can tell you that our government has made significant investments since we formed government, a total of $121.5 million since 2006.

Can you tell us how these investments have helped our health care system become more innovative?

[Dr. Alain Beaudet]

Certainly.

It is still early days and there's no question these investments have brought Canada to the forefront of nanomedicine and nanotechnology as applied to health. It is still, in many cases, very experimental, but we see a huge promise for new ways of delivering drugs, for instance, in delivering drugs specifically to tumours through the administration of these drugs via some nanoparticles that will be able to directly target the tumour and not disseminate the drug throughout the body.

There's a lot that we've been funding. I can say that as we develop the field more, more investigators are trained, and more young investigators are coming back from post-doctoral studies abroad and starting to do research in that field.

We see an increasing demand for funding in that area.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

How about the personalized medicine signature initiative? How has this made research communities more efficient, more effective?

[Dr. Alain Beaudet]

I think we partially answered that question. There are several aspects to the signature initiative. It's the initiative I talked about on personalized medicine that is co-funded with Genome Canada.

I must add, talking about leveraging—I had a question on leveraging—that we're investing at the federal level $67.5 million. That's leveraged 50% by the provinces and the private sector. It's enormous. We're talking about doubling our investment to $135 million.

As you heard, what we're trying to do with this initiative is not only foster basic research to help us develop some genetic profiles for new diseases and a variety of disorders, but also to start thinking about the ethical issues linked with personalized medicine, linked with the cost of personalized medicine, and about how we're going to deal with that. We are looking at how are we going to ensure that what we're gaining in terms of quality of care is counterbalanced by affordability of care as well.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

In your opinion, do you think investments in research of this kind would help our government in the long run to improve the way it approves the drugs?

[Dr. Alain Beaudet]

I'm totally convinced it will.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Mrs. Sabourin, do you want to make a comment as well?