Thank you.
Honourable members, thank you for the opportunity to appear today to discuss GSK's experience with Canada's access to medicines regime and our company's extensive efforts, both globally and locally, to improve access to health care in the developing world.
There are three points I'd like to make. First, CAMR is efficient and effective at achieving its objectives. Second, the provision of medicines is only one essential element in addressing health care issues in the developing world. Third, GSK is committed through action to addressing access to medicines through frameworks like CAMR and other means. GSK's experience with CAMR has shown that it is an effective framework for Canada to meet its international obligations and for increasing developing world access to much needed medicines.
While 32 other countries in the EU and elsewhere have passed legislation similar to CAMR, to the best of our knowledge Canada is the only country from which a shipment has actually taken place. This first shipment of a triple combination HIV/AIDS drug to Rwanda from Apotex in Toronto took place in September of 2008.
First allow me to congratulate Apotex for stepping up to address the issue in Rwanda. The following chronology of events leading up to that shipment is important, because it demonstrates that only 68 days elapsed from the time Apotex made the request of GSK until they were granted authorization to begin exporting Zidovudine and Lamivudine to Rwanda. Please allow me to review this timeline with you.
You will recall that Bill C-9 came into effect in May of 2005, creating the Jean Chrétien Pledge to Africa Act, now called CAMR. Almost a full year passed before GSK and two other patent donors were approached by Apotex requesting voluntary licences. GSK responded promptly, indicating a willingness to discuss the granting of a licence and seeking clarification on key questions relating to anti-diversion and patient safety, both very real issues to GSK. Apotex did not respond at that time to our request for further information. Fourteen months later, GSK received another request from Apotex for a voluntary licence, and within 26 days we provided our consent to the commissioner of patents to issue an authorization pursuant to CAMR. Ultimately, one more year passed before the first shipment of a triple combination product was shipped from Apotex, not because of red tape, not because of a complex and lengthy process, but for reasons outside the administrative and legal process and not within the control of GSK. Apotex took more than one year to start shipping their generic drug to Rwanda.
Our experience is that CAMR can and does work when put to the test. In October 2009, GSK announced that it remains ready and willing to do our part within the framework of CAMR to ensure that the objectives are being met. We must not lose sight of the needs of patients in the developing world. While CAMR includes important safeguards and transparency requirements that help encourage R and D investment and support new drug discoveries, we must refrain from using CAMR as a means to re-open the intellectual property debate in Canada. While Canada lags behind other countries in IP protection, the protection afforded by Canada's rules holds the key to developing new medications that can fight and eventually eradicate many diseases that ravage the developing world. We must not become embroiled in an IP debate that would create further instability and drive away crucial investments in our country.
This brings me to our second point. The provision of medicines is only one essential element of many needed to address health care. As you've already learned from Ms. Downie and others, simply delivering medicines, whether brand or generic, doesn't nearly address the challenges developing countries face, such as poor sanitation and education, as well as social barriers. There are significant infrastructure issues related to the availability of health care workers, distribution networks, and health care facilities.
Finally, corruption and criminal activity can lead to diversion of medicines from the intended patients, either within the country itself or even before the medicines reach the national authority. We need a broader approach, one that goes beyond CAMR, and this is our third point.
GSK has long taken an innovative, responsible, and sustainable approach to improving the health of patients in the developing world. Working in partnership with governments, NGOs, and the private sector, GSK has among other things deliberately focused our R and D efforts on diseases of the developing world, such as HIV, TB, and malaria. We have sought to eliminate many diseases, including lymphatic filariasis, one of the world's most debilitating diseases, and we have consistently offered preferential pricing on antiretrovirals and vaccines.
This legacy of commitment is not enough. We have stopped saying it is not our fault there is no infrastructure to deliver health care and have started asking ourselves what else we can do to ensure that infrastructure does exist. Consequently, we have established several new initiatives that continue to address these broader issues and specifically advance GSK's leadership role. Specifically, we have recently begun sharing our intellectual property on neglected tropical diseases by setting up a patent pool and inviting others to join us.
We have opened the doors of our research centre, dedicated to diseases of the developing world, to all other researchers. We have reduced the price of our patented medicines in the least developed countries to no higher than 25% of what it is in the developed world, and we have committed to reinvest 20% of the profits made on medicines in these countries in local health care infrastructure projects. Finally, we have expanded the donation of albendazole to treat children at risk of intestinal worms, a condition that the World Health Organization's first report on neglected tropical diseases confirms causes more ill health in school-aged children than any other infection.
I am very proud to be part of the renewed partnership agreement between Canada's Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies and Health Partners International of Canada to help speed the delivery of medicines and other supplies to people in need across the developing world.
In closing, we have illustrated that CAMR is only a piece of the larger puzzle, and that piece has proven to work effectively and efficiently when used. GSK's belief is that our collective efforts and intentions are best focused by serving the broader issue of improving health care in the developing world through leadership and action.
I thank you for your time, and I welcome any questions.