Evidence of meeting #14 for Subcommittee on Neurological Disease in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was alzheimer's.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
Mr. Ferdinand, would you mind tabling those with my clerk? We'll see that they're distributed to all committee members.
9:30 a.m.
Vice-President, Policy, Canada's Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (Rx & D)
We'll do that. It will be clearer, I think, to see the information in that form.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you.
I'd like to ask all of you, if you could write your wish list to this committee, in terms of research, what would be your top recommendations? Write your wish list.
Dr. Quirion, would you like to start?
9:30 a.m.
Executive Director, International Collaborative Research Strategy for Alzheimer's Disease, Canadian Institutes of Health Research
If you want me to start on a wish list, my wish list is quite long.
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, International Collaborative Research Strategy for Alzheimer's Disease, Canadian Institutes of Health Research
I think, in a sense, I'm in agreement with what others have mentioned, and that's to create a very strong network of Canadian experts, to have core centres in the country that will be expert in clinical research related to Alzheimer's disease and dementia; an animal model; brain banking, because brain banks are very useful for us to look at and see what's wrong in an Alzheimer brain; health services research, such as how we organize services in the country and access to care for persons suffering from dementia.
Basically, this set of centres and core will be tremendous, will stimulate collaboration between experts of all kinds in the country, but also allow us to partner much more effectively at the international level. By teaming together, we'll be able to solve the problem.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, International Collaborative Research Strategy for Alzheimer's Disease, Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Yes. It would be a bit like in the United States, where they have now 28 of these Alzheimer's disease centres. Each of them is funded to the level of about $8 million to $10 million a year. We don't necessarily ask for that in Canada, but each of these centres should have at least a budget of about $2 million to $3 million per year. I think, considering the excellence of the teams of experts in the country, we could probably support five or six networks that will be top-level internationally.
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, International Collaborative Research Strategy for Alzheimer's Disease, Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Basically, some of them will be a bit more virtual. Others, such as where Weihong Song is, could be physical. At McGill, it could be physical because we have a node of people who are able to look at Alzheimer's disease from different perspectives. But in other places, like here in Ottawa, there'll be a few people that are experts in Alzheimer's disease, not enough to have a centre, a physical centre here, but they will be associated with the centre in Toronto or with some other centre in the country.
That's why a network of centres, where you have five or six core, is quite effective. Then people collaborate, and all the data, all the knowledge, and all the technology is available to everyone.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
So that's part of your wish list: a network of centres of excellence. What else do you want on that wish list?
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, International Collaborative Research Strategy for Alzheimer's Disease, Canadian Institutes of Health Research
There are three other things that are also, of course, very important. We need to have a training ground to train the next generation of scientists and clinicians in the field of brain research, and in this case Alzheimer's disease. That is very important.
Weihong here is very young, but Serge and I are getting a bit older. So we have to make sure that the next generation of scientists is there and will be able to replace us in the future. And excellence is key. It's not just to train these guys, but they need to be at the very best international level. These types of networking centres that I was talking about will help very much in terms of training the next generation of scientists. So that would be number two.
And number three would be to make sure, as Inez said, that we have money, that we have dollars to run the experiments and do the research.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
In terms of operating grants, what kind of dollars are we looking at?
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, International Collaborative Research Strategy for Alzheimer's Disease, Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Well, in Canada at the moment, at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the average grant is about $120,000 per year. And usually this is for five years. Most of the grants are five-year grants.
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, International Collaborative Research Strategy for Alzheimer's Disease, Canadian Institutes of Health Research
If we compare it with the U.S., the model is a bit different, but there it would be twice as much as that. That gives you the figure.
I think if we were able to go to what we call an individual grant, at $200,000 per year for five years--so a block grant of $1 million for an investigator--that would be much more competitive than where we are now in comparison with the United States, with Germany, and with the United Kingdom.
That would be a significant increase in support, direct support, to a lab or to a team of scientists.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you.
And would others like to add to the wish list?
Dr. Song.
9:35 a.m.
Canada Research Chair in Alzheimer's Disease, Jack Brown and Family Professorship, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
I mentioned my wish list in my presentation, Dr. Duncan, and it would very much echo what Dr. Rémi Quirion just said. In Canada we have very excellent experts across the country, but we do have a cluster of experts in certain places. To be viewed as a centre of excellence would be a great addition to our researchers.
When Rémi talked about the second part of wish list, actually, I think that centre, with a training base, would be embedded in that. When I moved to Canada from Harvard nine years ago, of huge benefit was the Canada research chairs program. Obviously we have the ability to run the lab, hire the graduate students, or hire the post-docs, but right now...is really not that good, so....
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
9:40 a.m.
Bloc
Luc Malo Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Good morning, Dr. Gauthier. Welcome to all of you.
I want to understand your second recommendation on the changes you would like us to make to the Patent Act regarding pharmaceuticals. I understand from your recommendation that where research on prevention is concerned, more time is needed to study the effectiveness of a molecule. Under the current Patent Act, the protection could expire before the medication was marketed or studied in clinical trials.
Have I understood your recommendation correctly? Could it be applied to something else besides Alzheimer's disease?
9:40 a.m.
As an Individual
I will begin answering, and my colleague may have something to add.
For Alzheimer's disease, symptomatic treatments in use currently are administered for six months to two years on the average, and clinical trials to demonstrate their effectiveness last six months. In that case the approval and trial period under the current Patent Act is appropriate.
To prevent Alzheimer's disease among certain high-risk populations, we may have to use new molecules that modify amyloid or other protein deposits in the brain. The trial period will then be from five to seven years for the crucial phase III studies. For preventive treatment of younger patients where we would like to see very early intervention, trial periods could last for 10 years. So in those cases, we see that the trial period would be much longer than usual with regard to the current patent protection.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
9:40 a.m.
Bloc
Luc Malo Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
I understand you quite well.
Mr. Ferdinand, you were talking about the development of vaccines. Is this to prevent the disease, as Dr. Gauthier was suggesting, or is it—
9:40 a.m.
Vice-President, Policy, Canada's Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (Rx & D)
Indeed, because in my opinion, we are just beginning to evaluate the research that is being done, in the universities in particular, here and elsewhere, on the prevention of certain mental illnesses. So as we are just in the preliminary stages of the development of vaccines which we hope will be very effective, we have to encourage this type of research. It is entirely new. We must thus encourage this research, and if we have expertise here in Canada in this area being studied by the subcommittee, perhaps we should not only encourage our researchers, but also seek to obtain funds from external sources.
If there are, elsewhere in the world, pharmaceutical firms, lenders or investors who want to invest in vaccines and prevention research, we have to create an environment that will attract these funds. Over $100 billion is invested in life sciences globally, and in Canada we attract about 2% of those investments. I think that given all of the excellence the other witnesses spoke to earlier, we can attract much more than 2% of those funds here to Canada.