Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
We're pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-393.
I represent the generic pharmaceutical industry, which has been an important part of the Canadian economy and health care system for more than 50 years. We are fortunate to have a large and sophisticated generic drug industry in Canada. Today it directly employs approximately 12,000 Canadians in high-skilled manufacturing and R and D positions.
Most of the generic drugs sold in Canada are manufactured in world-class facilities right here in Canada. The largest drug company in Canada, brand or generic, is Ontario drug maker, Apotex. The largest drug company in Quebec, brand or generic, is Pharmascience, also a generic.
Our industry fills six out of ten prescriptions in Canada today, and that number is growing quickly. There has been talk recently about the price of generic medicines in Canada and the ability to supply good-quality medicines at good prices abroad. Generic prices in Canada have traditionally supported pharmacy strongly. That system is changing. Provincial governments are changing that system. Generic drug prices in Canada have come down dramatically over the past year, as pharmacy funding is now being looked at in a different manner. Generic drugs have provided value for the Canadian health care system and are providing better value than ever.
In addition, Canadian generic drug makers actively support international humanitarian aid efforts. CGPA member companies are among the leading donors to Health Partners International of Canada, a non-profit relief and development organization that works through other partnerships to increase access to medicine and improve health in the developing world.
Our members are also active more recently in relief efforts in Haiti, donating millions of dollars worth of medicine through organizations like World Vision, Feed The Children, and Health Partners International.
This committee is studying a particular mechanism aimed at delivering drugs for humanitarian purposes to the developing world, Canada's access to medicines regime. The World Trade Organization decision, which is a decision of 120 countries, that led to the creation of CAMR, is a result of international recognition that the needs of the developing countries were not being met solely by the brand-name industry. Brand companies were generally unwilling, without competition, to lower their prices for drugs under patents to levels that these developing and least-developed countries could afford. That's why the international community came together and developed the so-called Doha agreement.
CAMR provides a legal and regulatory mechanism under which generic manufacturers in Canada are permitted to develop, produce, and export medicines covered by domestic patents to developing and least-developed countries for humanitarian purposes.
We've heard about some of the complexities of the regime, and we know that despite those, Apotex has developed and produced two shipments of its triple combination AIDS drug, Apo-TriAvir, to Rwanda. Unfortunately, the company has publicly stated that it will be difficult to use the regime again without changes being made.
There has been a lot of discussion this morning about whether CAMR works in its current form. The Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association's answer is no. Apotex's answer is no.
The problem with CAMR, which makes it ultimately unworkable, is the licensing scheme. The WTO decision that led to the creation of CAMR outlines four basic requirements that need to be met for an exporting country to grant a compulsory licence to a generic manufacturer, and these could have more easily been implemented by Canada. Instead, the CAMR licensing process is backwards; it is largely a process controlled by the interests of intellectual property rights holders and not the interests of those who desperately need access to life-saving medicines in times of health crises.
As outlined in our brief, CGPA supports the changes to the Patent Act that are outlined in Bill C-393. In our view, the streamlined application and licensing process in the bill embodies the spirit of the Doha declaration and the WTO decision, while at the same time ensuring Canada's compliance with its TRIPS obligations.
We have one issue with the bill, and that relates to the proposed amendment to the Food and Drugs Act that would allow for foreign drug approvals under CAMR. In our view, this is not necessary, and it's not supported by our association. The generic pharmaceutical industry continues to support a Health Canada approval.
With that, I will conclude my remarks, as I'm sure you will have several questions for the panel. I would be pleased, along with my colleague, to answer any questions you may have regarding Canada's access to medicines regime.
Thank you.