Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to be here today as part of the trade committee's consultation on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement.
With me is my colleague Mark Fleming from Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.
Innovative Medicines Canada is the national organization representing innovative pharmaceutical companies in Canada. We are dedicated to enhancing the well-being of Canadians through the discovery and development of new medications and vaccines. Together, we invest over $1 billion in research and development annually, fuelling Canada’s knowledge-based economy.
We'd like to briefly address a number of what we believe are misconceptions about how the provisions of TPP will impact Canadian pharmaceutical innovation, Canadian patients, and the costs to health care in Canada.
The first claim is that TPP somehow represents a significant increase in Canadian life sciences intellectual property protections.
Mr. Chair, in Canada's technical summary of negotiated outcomes of the TPP, the federal government concludes that on pharmaceuticals, TPP outcomes are, “In line with outcomes secured in the Canada-EU Comprehensive Trade and Economic Agreement (CETA)”. In other words, TPP breaks no materially new ground in extending IP protection in life sciences beyond what was negotiated in CETA.
The second claim that's often heard is that TPP will extend the life of patents in Canada.
Mr. Chair, under TPP, patent terms will remain at the international standard of 20 years. What will happen is that innovative companies will have an opportunity to potentially recover some of the time lost on their patents as a result of lengthy clinical trials and regulatory approval process delays.
The third claim is that TPP will increase the cost of Canadian medicines.
Mr. Chair, IP protection does not drive the cost of new medicines and vaccines. Besides, nothing in the TPP will prevent Canadian federal, provincial, and territorial governments from doing exactly what they do now, which is to set pharmaceutical prices through the PMPRB and other federal, provincial, and territorial price-setting mechanisms.