I can, and I actually think there are two experts who have also made a written submission to the committee, addressing some of these very specific points, two economists who have studied the pharmaceutical sector quite intensively.
One thing to say in response to this claim that there's no evidence that changing CAMR would actually make a difference is I think it's fair enough to say that we won't know until we try. If we never try, then certainly it will never make a difference. So why don't we give it a try? What's to lose? The worst possible scenario is that nothing changes, it makes no difference. That would be terribly disappointing, but at least we tried.
The best possible scenario would be that in fact our predictions are right. By making this simpler we would see it used again. We have a company that's already committed to using it to do a pediatric version of a drug. So that's a positive outcome.
To me that doesn't seem to be a reason not to try. There seems to be every good reason to try. It does seem odd to say it's not going to work and yet somehow it's going to have all of these negative consequences of exposing us to a risk of a trade challenge or undermining incentives for research and development.
I think the experts who have given you submissions, who have studied the pharmaceutical sector, are quite clear that there's really no correlation here. I think Dr. Kilby even alluded to the fact that making it easier for us to supply generic medicines to developing countries where these are not significant markets for the brand-name companies in the first place is somehow going to undermine their decisions about investing in research and development.
Those are not the markets that are driving their research and development decisions now. That's why we have what's called a 10/90 gap. That's why we have neglected diseases in the world, because these are poor people in poor countries. They're not the ones that a pharma wants to spend money researching and developing medicines for.
To say, then, that making it easier for those countries to get lower-cost generics is going to undermine the R and D decisions of the brand-name companies.... The two are not really connected. I think anyone who looks at the economics of the industry will tell you that.
What would happen, if we get a good outcome from this, is that you would in fact have a certain sector of the industry lining up contracts to supply medicines that are not being supplied to anybody now, which would, yes, lead to jobs. It would lead to royalty payments to the brand-name companies on those contracts.
It seems to me that it's actually a win-win situation all around.