Science and Research Committee on March 31st, 2022

[Dr. John Bell]

It's a great question. Sure, I'm happy to answer that. I think it is an important question. What BioCanRx is concerned about is that our IP will go outside the country and be developed elsewhere.

Right now if an academic scientist should develop an invention, it belongs to that scientist and his research institute. They have to support the patents and they can try to find a way to develop them, but of course if they don't have any resources to do that, the scientist is often obligated to go outside the country to try to find a way to protect that intellectual property and develop it elsewhere. Therefore, what we're trying to do is to say is this: We're already investing in Canada in many ways. We're making great science, we're making lots of infrastructure and great clinical care. Let's just bring it all together and make sure that our IP is actually cultivated, maintained and actually established and produced in Canada as opposed to giving it away.

We all know the story of insulin. Insulin was developed in Canada many years ago and it's never been manufactured here. So to Allen's point, I think we need to start investing in our own biomanufacturing and our own science that we're already paying for to make things happen here.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

You mentioned the CAR-T program, which you're very heavily involved with. I believe from my previous meeting that techniques like that for treating a patient in the United States cost more than $450,000. You've developed innovative ways to bring that down to say, $100,000. It's still a lot of money. I'm just wondering, again, if you see an end point where it's far cheaper? This is exciting, as I say, life-changing, life-saving science for patients. How will patients be able to afford that? Are governments covering the cost of that when you're treating them?

I'll stop there because I'll just take up your time and I'd rather listen to you.

[Dr. John Bell]

It's again the right question to ask because these are incredible new therapies and, in many cases, are providing people a very long or extended lifespan, if not a cure. As you point out, right now in the case of CAR-T, for instance, when we send a patient to Pennsylvania or to Seattle to be treated, it can cost upwards of a million dollars for the patient—often covered by the government. By creating it in our own infrastructure here in Canada, we'll be able to control those costs.

Stéph and I talk all the time about the concept of creating B corps, for instance, things that actually care more about Canadians and their patients than we do about investors essentially. I think there are ways to be creative, get inventions developed here and maintained here and priced for the way the Canadian system can stand. I think its soluble. I just think we've gotten ourselves into a mindset that we have to do it the big pharma way, and I think there are many ways to get around that. As you point out, we already have the cost down to about $100,000 per patient. I know we can do way better than that, because we've only treated a small number of patients so far. If we build our own infrastructure, I think the cost can be controlled and brought down.

You also have to weigh into that the cost of having a curative therapy versus therapies we currently give that are not curative, and that costs a lot of money too. I think there's a rationale for investing in these new technologies.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

I have another question on the timeline here. I think Ms. Michaud was talking about stage 1 and stage 2 trials. Is your network going to continue down the path through all those trials so that we will complete all that work in Canada and the patients in those trials can benefit here in Canada?

[Dr. John Bell]

That's our dream, of course, and the way we do that is to work with companies in Canada like Allen's company—that kind of company that's here in Canada—so that we can help facilitate those phase 1, phase 2, phase 3 studies here, and get it approved in Canada. Also during that whole process, as you point out, Mr. Cannings, we're actually being able to treat Canadian patients right now with therapies that are proving to be curative. So I think it's a good strategy.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Okay. I have a couple of seconds left and I have one quick question. .

I'll just stay with you, Dr. Bell. Would having a single national formulary for pharmaceuticals be beneficial for BioCanRx?

[Dr. John Bell]

We've talked about that. I think there is certainly value in that from the kinds of things we're doing to make sure that we have a pricing system that will work for Canadians and the Canadian health care system.

And congratulations on your 40th birthday too.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you. You must have forgotten your glasses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Mr. Cannings. Thank you to all of our witnesses.

We are now going into the second round. This will be a five-minute round. We'll begin with Mr. Soroka.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses tonight for coming.

Dr. Bell, you wanted to finish off, I think, a bit more, or at least I wanted to know a bit more. You talked about building a network or an infrastructure and how we could make that more cost-effective in Canada.

I'm intrigued as to what kind of ideas you would have about setting that up and how it would be more cost-effective.

[Dr. John Bell]

Let me just give you an example.

This actually already exists to some extent in our hospitals. We do bone marrow transplants, which I assume everybody has heard about. In fact Allen's company does a lot of products to support that kind of activity. Bone marrow transplants are done across the country. They're a point-of-care type of treatment, and they're quite affordable. They do great things for patients, and the kinds of therapies we're talking about are very similar to them.

We can leverage what we already have. We already have infrastructure in place. It's really about being very Canadian and working together, and that's what our network does. It really brings the best minds together and the best thought leaders, clinicians and scientists to really build here what we know that we need.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Okay. Thank you for that. I didn't realize that. You're right: We can back on to a lot of things that already exist. That's a very good point.

Mr. Deschênes, you spoke about how rural universities or colleges are not getting adequate funding. Are you also having a bigger problem with things being in the French language, or even with researchers producing position papers or getting funding in that regard because of the French language?

[François Deschênes]

Thank you for your question.

For some researchers in the natural sciences and engineering, we do sometimes get the feeling that the applications are being evaluated differently when they are written in French rather than English. It is easier to find English-speaking evaluators anywhere in the world than to find French-speaking evaluators.

There is probably an evaluation that needs to be done. I know that in the past, it was done at the SSHRC, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. We may need to put together a picture of the situation now in order to determine whether that bias still exists.

Apart from that, I think the composition of the committees is very important. We have to make sure that the evaluators are bilingual, or systematically make sure that the number of francophones is equivalent to the number of anglophones when evaluations are done.

This is important because, sometimes, the aspect that is highlighted is different in terms of interpretation. When publications are in French, the number of journals and recognition of the journals can also be difficult to assess. It is important to consider all these variables when evaluations are done.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Okay. Thank you for that.

I'm not certain if this is for Dr. Michaud or Dr. Bell.

When it comes to funding, you said that you're going into a sunset clause in one of the agreements, but you talked about a lot of funding coming from the private sector for different organizations. How much of that private funding actually assists in any type of research or development? Is that about a 5% or 10% or is it still higher?

Could you give me a breakdown of how much money is actually coming in from government versus from the private sector?

[Dr. Stéphanie Michaud]

Certainly. Currently the amount of funding we've been able to attract as a result of our financial outlay—currently of approximately $30 million—is close to $96 million. The exact figure is $95.78 million. This is as a result of being able to connect all of the dots that are necessary in order to advance a preclinical asset all the way through to a clinical trial.

When you build these types of engines that work, that are producing results, that are filled with experts and the right clinicians who are developing some very exciting assets, the private sector takes notice and wishes to invest.

Another key point to recall is that when we work at BioCanRx, we utilize a pipeline approach, and because we're a mission-oriented organization we are very much looking to increase the number of clinical trials, so that a greater number of patients in Canada can benefit from domestic clinical trials. We invest in the technology keeping in mind what the clinical trial for this is going to look like, and as we progress down that pipeline, the amount of monies that we're able to attract from the private sector, of course, increases.

Therefore, in terms of leverage ratios in our clinical trial program, we're approaching ratios of 8:1 on the dollar, and that's because greater value has been introduced into the assets under development.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Okay. Thank you for that.

I'm pretty certain the chair is going to tell me my time is up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

I regret it, my colleague and friend, but yes. Thank you, Mr. Soroka, for those questions.

Mr. Lauzon, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First and foremost, I would like to thank all the witnesses who are here this evening. It is Thursday evening, for everyone. Thank you very much for being here.

My first question is for Mr. Bell from BioCanRx.

Mr. Bell, you piqued my curiosity about biomanufacturing when you gave the example of insulin. You suggested that insulin could be produced in Canada.

Would be the benefits for Canada of producing our medicines instead of importing them? Would that have an impact on supply?

[Dr. John Bell]

That's a great question, and great points, actually. The reality is that when you manufacture in a particular country, you don't want to move your manufacturing plant. You want to keep it there for the duration of the product's lifetime because it costs a lot of money to move it around. [Technical difficulty—Editor], it stays in our country.

For instance, Dr. Eaves's company, which is trying to manufacture in Canada, is not going to go anywhere else because he has the infrastructure here and the personnel here. By building that kind of biomanufacturing infrastructure in Canada, we're going to anchor companies in Canada. They're going to stay here, people are going to be trained to work in those companies and we're going to generate for the economy. I think that's really important.

What we often do is have our stuff manufactured offshore, and as you suggest, that can have an impact on supply chains as well. There are so many reasons why it makes a lot of sense to build in Canada, and build biomanufacturing in particular, so we can provide products for our own patients.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you very much for that answer.

Ms. Michaud, you also piqued my curiosity concerning funding sources, which are divided by periods.

What would the impact be if funding were to be stopped in 2024, on all aspects: researcher retention, product development, and the connections we have with all research mechanisms?

Can you give us some examples?

[Dr. Stéphanie Michaud]

Yes, absolutely, Mr. Lauzon.

Thank you for that question.

The main impact would be that we would no longer be able to continue working on our projects, the clinical trials projects. We would no longer be able to fund new projects and we would no longer be able to attract others. For example, when our budget was cut by 40%, in 2020, we had to completely cut out the first stage of our product development pipeline, because we unfortunately didn't have enough money to sustain it. What did we do? We continued to invest in the products we had already invested in, to try to get them to clinical trials.

If there were to be a period in which there was no funding, that would result not only in departures from the BioCanRx team itself, but also in a loss of continuity in the projects. It would jeopardize the engine we have built, which is working really very well, for evaluating the technologies and moving them toward clinical trials.

So it would cause a total stoppage of these types of activities. That would have a major impact, sir.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you very much for that answer.

Mr. Deschênes, my next question is for you.

Gilles Patry, the president of the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, told this committee that many Canadian students don't go on to get higher diplomas. We see students in Canada end their education before the master's or doctorate level, as compared to other western countries.

Have you experienced this situation? What would be the best way of remedying it?

[François Deschênes]

Yes, it is absolutely a situation we are experiencing in all the universities, and particularly in the regions. The pull of the labour market is very strong, with full employment and the labour shortage in our regions at present.

One of the important factors is certainly increasing the scholarships offered for master's degrees and doctorates. At present, students prefer to work and earn a decent salary rather than getting an annual scholarship of $15,000 or $20,000 or $25,000. At present, we are seeing that an increase would change things in terms of the capacity to attract and retain these students, who will make up the researchers of tomorrow.

It is therefore important to think about this now in order to make sure we have the next generation.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you.

Thanks, Madam Chair. That was five minutes and 10 seconds.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Yes, thank you, Monsieur Lauzon.

With that, dear colleagues, we've reached the end our time. I know that the entire committee has really enjoyed this good discussion, and we're very grateful to all of you for taking your time to do that. If you're interested, we hope you'll come back.

With that, dear colleagues, we will suspend while we get ready for our next panel. Thank you again, everyone.