Well, right now the money to do the trials is primarily with the drug companies. A trial can cost in the range of $150 million. The total CIHR budget, I think, the last time I looked, is about $900 million, and that's for all of the research that it funds, not just drug trials.
So, the drug companies have the money to do the trials, but the drug companies also have a dilemma. One, they have a duty to their shareholders to make sure the company's value increases, and two, they have a duty to doctors and the public to make sure information is reported accurately and completely.
Sometimes, based on what we've seen in the United States, as a result of the lawsuits brought against companies by the justice department, those conflicts are resolved in favour of keeping information secret. The drug companies can continue to fund the trials. But as I said earlier, what we need is a barrier put up between paying for the trials and selecting who designs, carries out, and analyzes the trials. So that's why I was suggesting that the drug companies would give the money to an independent organization, like CIHR, which would then use a peer-reviewed process to decide who should conduct them.