Industry Committee on April 23rd, 2007

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

We could carry out five projects in five of the world's poorest countries over a two-year period, for example.

[Russell Williams]

We are involved on several levels. The Rx&D firms will continue to work in partnership on all projects designed to provide assistance to Third World countries. We are proud of this accomplishment and of our companies. Our role under the act is limited to a 30-day period, but we will do our job. We'll do everything we can to ensure the act works. Failing this, I hope the next phase will be put to the test. I will be the first one happy to see Canada find another way of supplying drugs to the Third World.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Either Mr. Kay or Mr. Keon.

[Jim Keon]

As Mr. Kay mentioned, Apotex has already poured $2 million into a pilot project. If this project works well, I'm confident other companies will be ready to move forward with the legislation.

[Russell Williams]

According to the act, our responsibility ceases after 30 days, but our work in the Third World continues. We will meet our other obligations. We will never throw in the towel. We have already forged several partnerships which we intend to maintain.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I'm sorry, but no one has done their job, and that includes us. You stated in your submissions that the government had failed to put in place the necessary infrastructure. Companies have not managed to test one fully. I'm telling you to test three. That's all I wish to say on the subject.

If I understood you correctly, Mr. Alton, your pharmaceutical product will cost an average of $240 in disadvantaged countries where the gross per capita income is $825. And we're not even talking about the world's poorest nations. That would be like someone paying $12,000 for drugs in Canada, on an annual income of $40,000. Can anyone in Africa afford this kind of drug?

[Gregg Alton]

No, no. Affordability, even at our cost, which is as low as we can drive the cost down, is still great.

I think a question came up about PEPFAR as another source of funding. More money is needed to purchase products, even if they're generics, even if they're coming through our access program in Africa. Almost half the product being purchased in Africa is being supported by President Bush's PEPFAR initiative, the initiative of the United States; the vast majority of the rest of it is coming from the global fund. These countries can't even afford the cheapest products.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

May I ask one last question?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You're over time. Brièvement, s’il vous plaît.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Everybody is over time today.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

For the sake of Canada's image, do you not think this cause merits as much financial attention as the war in Afghanistan?

[Gregg Alton]

I think it's a question for Canada, as far as the image is concerned. I do believe that substantially more resources need to come from developed nations like Canada, like the United States, like western Europe, to deal with HIV/AIDS in the least developed countries of the world. They are not going to be able to solve the problems on their own. They're not going to be able to solve the problems through access programs, through CAMR and those issues, because there's just not enough money to pay for the drugs, to pay for the nurses.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Van Kesteren.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I didn't think I was up yet, but that's good.

Thank you all for coming.

This is interesting. I feel kind of bad for you. I'll tell you why I feel bad. You're being browbeaten because you happen to be companies that make a lot of money doing something right. And if you hadn't done those things right, we'd still be in the quandary we were in 15 to 20 years ago, when AIDS first.... So I don't think it's really all that fair to lambaste you about those things, but as I think Mr. Shipley said a little while ago, what we're trying do is to find out why Canada hasn't brought this about.

We have this wonderful idea—I think they call it Mr. Chrétien's promise to Africa. It was a wonderful idea, but it's just not materializing.

I can understand profit, I really can. It's what drives us. I was just saying to my colleague, it's not fair to suggest that your company has to provide all the answers. If we want to do that as a country, we need to shell out the bucks, to say it very bluntly.

I heard some charges, and I want to give the pharmaceuticals a chance to respond. I don't think they really had that chance.

First of all, the NGOs and the generics are opposed to the requirement to first seek voluntary licence. In your opinion—and I have a few questions, so maybe you could just answer this quickly—why is this requirement needed? Is it conceivable that a voluntary licence would be granted?

[Terry McCool]

There are a couple of points. In the spirit of transparency, companies should be notified if you're going to go to that extraordinary step of overriding patents to create compulsory licence. I think out of due process you have a right to know. I don't see any reason why, if the generic has a country identified through the WTO, that a voluntary licence from our industry would not be issued.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Do you hear that, Mr. Williams? So this can be done. There may be some changing of the act. Maybe we can just make it a little bit more simple, but it's not inconceivable that licences would be granted.

[Russell Williams]

Frankly, I think the act is more straightforward than some people are saying. It is straightforward. Some people may choose to try to complicate it, but it doesn't have to be complicated. There are basic questions that could be answered. Absolutely, I think this all could work, and as I said from day one, we have been supportive of the principles of this act.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I'm going to give you a chance to answer this question too, because I think I understand the reasoning, but why do you want the identity of the country seeking the drugs?

[Terry McCool]

That's a WTO requirement that 146 countries signed on to, that they needed to notify the WTO that they had insufficient manufacturing to produce these kinds of drugs. The suggestion was made that Canada should go to the WTO and change this agreement of 146 countries. Those negotiations are tough enough to do in the first place. I don't see that necessarily happening. But that's a WTO requirement, and Canada has respected those WTO decisions in terms of drafting the legislation for this.

The only thing I would add is, in all fairness, everybody had a chance to negotiate with the Canadian government for, I think Brian said, 15 months, but everybody was at the table, everybody knew what they were talking about, and everybody tried to simplify the process in the best interest of trying to get products shipped to Africa.

I think one question that wasn't answered was whether there was that much of a supply here in Canada, through the generic industry, many of whom do not have manufacturing here. There are a couple of major companies—Apotex is one—that could actually participate in this bill, but I think there was an assumption that we had this big generic industry that was going to jump on this and participate, and I don't think that's possible.

[Gregg Alton]

Yes. If I could, I'll jump in.

I think from our point of view at Gilead, our goal is actually for us to work directly with governments throughout the world--you call it voluntarily, but not in the TRIPS terms of a voluntary licence--and work out our arrangements. That is our goal, and that's what we try to do as a company: balance our intellectual property with the needs of patients and access to our products.

If there were ever a case where there was a need for a legislation-like hammer or the flexibility in TRIPS, I would feel, from Gilead's point of view, that we had failed as a company in meeting the needs of these countries throughout the world. We really do think that the requirement to identify the country and have our request come forward is important. Because we'd like to understand if we're not meeting those needs, and we'd like the ability to talk to that government and try to work out an arrangement whereby we can provide our drug to them through our systems, the systems we've put in place.

We have been successful every time doing that. I think that should be the goal. The goal should not be to break patents. The goal should not be to use CAMR. The goal should not be to use the flexibilities in TRIPS. The goal should be for the research and development industry to have responsible pricing mechanisms that allow access to their products by the developing world.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Okay.

I have a little one, just a little one.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Just a little one, again, yes, all right.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I have to get this off my chest, because I really have to find out what's going on here.

I'm just speaking for myself, because it's in the back of my mind. Is there a possibility that African countries really are...? I mean, they're concerned about these things, but we're talking about.... Mr. Shipley was mentioning malaria, for instance. They love our good intentions, but would they want to see more help, possibly, to improve their health? We don't have tuberculosis in this country because our health care systems are much better. Is that a reality, possibly?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I don't know if that qualifies as a little question.

Members, we're all going way over time, and we're going to run out of time for members' questions.

Who is that directed to, Mr. Van Kesteren?