Mr. Speaker, let me begin by suggesting that I will be supporting in principle Bill C-274 in the name of the member of Parliament for Windsor West. I have worked tirelessly with the member over the years, as I have with the member for Scarborough—Rouge River and a number of other members on what has been obviously one of the most neglected areas of our health care policy.
We have heard some very interesting speeches by members of Parliament from all sides of the House on this issue. Most will not support, apparently, the initiative that is being taken here. We certainly need to update our thinking about drug patents in this country and of course, since 1993, what has been the ultimate benefit for Canadians.
We can talk about innovative drugs and how important it is to keep the price of our health care system down. We can look at a number of other initiatives and PR perspectives that have been given. It is important for us to understand that when it comes to the so-called balance that has been discussed, we need to give to the House a reality check that Canadians spent almost $22 billion in drugs last year, up substantially from the year before. Much of that balance, quite apart from the cost to consumers and the cost to various drug plans and other drug insurers, has also meant investments in research and development.
We know that when a drug is qualifying for its approval it must go through a very rigorous test. The test is a requirement that the companies must engage in as part of their research and development. What we have seen recently, and I think this has been made very clear by the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and others, is that in fact the research and development is often advertising. In fact research and development is what they are required to do to conduct clinical trials, not the vaunted, wonderful R and D that would happen, that we thought would take place many years ago, but instead, what they have to do, the bare bones. Even at that we saw last year that the 11% requirement was not met. It is now down near 9%.
Let us put this into perspective. Several members have talked about the regulations as they relate to new drug submissions, as they relate to the requirement to fulfill certain obligations. We heard from other members concerning certain drugs that were abused. In fact, almost every drug that was nearing or ending its patent was subject to automatic injunctions which allowed the patent holder to basically make a claim of infringement without even having to prove it, because of a bizarre, arcane, draconian system. It basically forced the generic which was lawfully attempting to reproduce the drug at the end of expiry into a legal morass which went on for years.
In the case of Losec, it should have come off in 1999. Losec is an ulcer drug which costs Canadian consumers over $425 million a year. Those are real figures that cannot be simply dismissed. Of course the overall costs to our health care system came in the form of private corporations, provinces and other corporations which had to pay for this ultimately.
I suggested at the time that it was important for us, and we know we had a pitch battle in the industry committee of which I was vice-chair, where members suddenly walked in out of nowhere, knowing it all. Of course we never had the full study that we thought we should have had, but it did click with the industry department. I know that what they proposed here in terms of its recent regulatory package to deal with the retroactive claims or what they call evergreening took place sometime in November or December. To date we have no definitive answer as to where that is going.
My guess is that while it may take out the most egregious forms of automatic injunctions or this draconian system of being able to claim retroactively one's submission for a new drug, it seems to me that it will not do what has been done in the only other jurisdiction which had this system, the United States. There, the President of the United States proactively said, “I will not allow you to frivolously cause another stay or to go and get another patent extension or bring these matters before the courts and tie them up while making tons and tons of money”. Instead, the United States went with one stay .
The United States, of course, receives not only the benefit of having the infrastructure of the drug industry, it also has some of the greatest lobbyists to Congress. If Congress could accept that as a limitation, why is it so difficult for this House of Commons and our industry department to get it right?
I am exasperated as any member of Parliament here. I am glad that members of Parliament raise the issue of cross-border drugs, and that we have this terrible thing that is happening, but that, in many respects, beguiles and, of course in my view, denies the real game that has been played here with prescription drugs to the detriment of Canadians.
I know the position of the Liberal Party in 1993. I campaigned on that position. I defeated a member of Parliament who cheerfully brought this thing through. It hurt seniors and Canadians and today I am true to what I said in 1992 and 1993 when that bill was wrong. It needs a rewrite.
There is no doubt in my mind that section 511 prevents, for example, paclitaxel, which is a very important drug for women as it relates to cancer. It was a drug created by the United States department of health. Officials found it through a little coniferous tree known as a yew. They found the product and were able to extract the serum but could not patent it because they were a government agency. They gave it at the time to Bristol-Myers Squibb. BMS then took the product, patented it, and then released it several years later because it thought it was not effective. A little tiny company in St. Catharines, Ontario, which is saving millions of dollars and a lot of lives, decided to pick this product up only to find that BMS out of nowhere showed up and reclaimed the patent.
There is something terribly wrong with a company being able to not invest a penny in that kind of patent product, to get rid of it, to abandon it only to get it back when some other small innovative company, which happens to also be a very important company, loses the opportunity. In my view, our regulations do not provide any balance. They in fact destroy the balance and unevenly put the burden on consumers against those who want to innovate and those who want to create new products.
I am very pleased to see the Bloc Québécois finally recognizing this issue. I am very pleased to see that there is certainly a change in terms of the approach that people are taking, that people count, and that there has to be a restoration of balance.
However, I want to make it very clear that if we want to make this legislation successful, meaningful, and build on what we are doing in other initiatives, including the Chrétien relief package for Africa which I initiated through my caucus in 2001 working with Médecins Sans Frontières and Oxfam, the last thing we should be doing is giving ourselves, with respect to the drug patents regime, a bum rap.
It is very important that we understand that the fragility of the system, as it relates to the overall cost for drugs and being able to increase innovation while not completely dumping on our generic industry, is the position to which we have to continue to look forward.
As the rest of the world is busying its way to find new opportunities for its generic industries, Canada has had a policy which in my view has been very detrimental to generics. I can only conclude that if it is so important for us to have a drug patents regime, where a company can come in and create all sorts of innovation in another country and not even have the courtesy of packaging those new drugs in this country, we have been sold a bill of goods.
It is extremely important that members of Parliament get their minds around this and speak to the department and industry officials because it is also not true to suggest that there is some kind of a balance between innovation and generics. We should also consider the balance between health care and industrial outcomes. In my view, health care has not been properly treated. If anything, it has been seen only from a commercial end and I do not think Canadians would generally agree with that.
It is important for us to understand the intentions of the bill. If we cannot change forcefully these regulations, then there is no other option but to rewrite them. I believe that is the right approach and it is an approach whose time unfortunately has come. I would ask that all parties who are involved with this, who may be lobbied on this question, take into consideration the overall impacts on our economy and on the bottom line for Canadians, particularly Canadians between the ages of 18 and 64 who often have no drug plans.
I am not asking the drug industry to not be given something that it clearly deserves, but it is important for us to understand that when it comes to sustaining economic outcomes for Canadians, it is important that Canadians have an opportunity to understand that these regulations must also serve the general and common interests of this country. I believe that they do not. I believe they need to be reformulated and if they cannot be reformulated, this member's bill must be allowed to pass.