Evidence of meeting #37 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was camr.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director General, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Industry Canada
Do you want to talk about the first part of the question?
Liberal
Chief Air Negotiator, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Mr. Chairman, the comment from me won't be particularly satisfactory. I'm just not in a position to respond to the honourable member on that point.
Liberal
Dan McTeague Liberal Pickering—Scarborough East, ON
Let me go specifically to the question. None of you have talked about the UN tender process, that a host country doesn't have really the public service infrastructure.
Ms. Clément, I don't believe you addressed one important issue, namely the possibility that patents will be eliminated or used for unintended purposes. I haven't heard your agency comment on an issue that affects everyone, for example, on what to do in the case of a country like Botswana that doesn't have the capacity to procure.
It cannot respond to the UN tender process itself. Why is this not a concern of your department?
Senior Director, Regional and Geographic Programs - Southern and Eastern Africa, Canadian International Development Agency
The capacity of African governments to procure--and there are issues of capacity when it comes to the procurement in developing countries. CIDA is involved in partnership with some of its multilateral initiatives, such as the Global Fund, as well as through its bilateral programming, where it provides support to governments to help them build that capacity. It's an issue that's being dealt with.
Liberal
Dan McTeague Liberal Pickering—Scarborough East, ON
Can you supply information specific to countries that have a concern, where there is a substantial presence of AIDS, where Canada has in fact helped the civil service, the public service, to have the capacity to respond, to build, and to formulate the UN tender? That's a rather rigorous request. Do you have examples of where Canada has in fact helped countries streamline the paperwork, as it were?
Senior Director, Regional and Geographic Programs - Southern and Eastern Africa, Canadian International Development Agency
I don't have an example here with me.
I don't know if you have an example with respect to the Global Fund.
I know that's one of its main components, to build the capacity with respect to access to medicine.
Conservative
Liberal
Dan McTeague Liberal Pickering—Scarborough East, ON
If you wouldn't mind. I would like to see this, because it seems to me that a lot of the countries, which have not been mentioned here, have not been able to make the request because of the cumbersome nature of the paperwork and the rather in-depth UN tendering process.
Director, Policy Bureau, Therapeutic Products Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
There are two tendering processes. The UN procurement agencies will go through their own tender process. They look to the pre-qualified list, but in the countries themselves...Rwanda, for example, had a law where any procurement would be done by tender. So you're talking about the UN—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
To be fair, I need to move on to the next member, but there is a request for documents, of who is participating through the Global Fund to build capacity.
Now we're on to the Conservative Party.
Mr. Braid, for five minutes.
October 7th, 2010 / 12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of the witnesses for being here this morning.
I certainly appreciate the discussion, and we all certainly share the goal of wanting to address this very serious issue of HIV/AIDS and the very tragic consequences that we see of the disease, particularly on the continent of Africa. We all want to find more effective ways for Canada to address and to respond to that issue.
I'm presuming my questions might be best directed to you, Ms. Downie. I'd like to understand the 2007 example just a bit more. Are you perhaps the person who is most familiar with—
Director General, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Industry Canada
Probably between Mr. Ready and I, we can kind of walk through the timing and the process.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
I'm going to try to go as quickly as I can.
Apo-TriAvir, obviously, was a generic of...who owns the brand name equivalent?
Director General, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Industry Canada
There were actually three patents involved.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
And how far along were those brand name patents within the 20-year patent protection?
Director General, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Industry Canada
That I'm not actually sure of. I don't know whether my colleagues who are with me are aware or not, but I can certainly let you know.
Conservative
Director General, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Industry Canada
That's right.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Had Apotex had that drug in its production, or did it receive the licence to produce it and then quickly turn it around? Is that what happened?
Director General, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Industry Canada
I'm not actually aware of that.
Do you know?
Director, Policy Bureau, Therapeutic Products Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
That particular triple therapy was at the request of Médecins Sans Frontières. They had discussed it with Apotex, to produce it; it didn't exist, and it doesn't exist in the brand version either, because the two products are the property of one company and the third is another company's. So we don't even have the triple therapy in the Canadian market as a combined therapy.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
That's interesting.
We've heard that one of the reasons that CAMR has only been used once and that developing countries aren't coming to Canada to purchase more generic medications is that they can find them in other jurisdictions--like India and China--more cost effectively. So what circumstances existed in 2007 to allow this example to be cost effective?