Mr. Speaker, the first thing we have to do is get rid of the automatic stay of injunction, where there are all these frivolous lawsuits. By the way, the generic companies win over 80% of those lawsuits at the end of the day.
These lawsuits delay the introduction of drugs into the market in a generic form, which costs provincial and federal coffers hundreds of millions of dollars each year. they cannot get the generic form. It is not available and they have to pay a premium price despite the fact that it is beyond the 20 years. We need to have some regulations changed.
There is no problem with the fact that if companies are going to invest in a new drug they should get a return on that investment and have patent protection for the drug. Sometimes there are games played on both sides, but the single biggest abuse of the system is that we litigate, we do not innovate.
We actually allow somebody to get an automatic stay of injunction and get multiple patent protections. That is what is amazing about this. They can claim that they changed the coding of the pill or the colour of the pill. They can add sugar. They can do any of those things and that is called innovation. They get patent protection automatically for another two years and the generic firms have to prove that they are not actually violating an infringement. That is bizarre.
In the United States they have one stay. They can still claim patent infringement but they have to prove it. They have to go to court and present a logical argument that their product is being infringed upon, as opposed to just getting a stay automatically. I think that is a fair system, because it gets rid of all the frivolous lawsuits out there that are related to this industry.
Once we do that, we get cheaper drugs on the market right away. We ensure that the provinces will benefit and be able to do bulk purchasing at lower rates. If we can fix some of the other regulations, maybe we can take care of some of those other problems around the research and development area that cause people concern.
But this is the first thing we need to do. It is an important notion to speak about, because what we are arguing as New Democrats is that we cannot continue to just throw money at the health care system. There are regulatory reforms we can make that would increase savings, which can be put to actually making sure that we have shorter waiting times and people can get access to medicines more quickly.
People will be healthier and have greater wellness when they get access to the medications for their treatments. That would have a significant cost savings, not only to our medical system but to the individuals who get proper treatments on a regular basis, can afford their drugs and can take them the way they are prescribed. They are going to be healthier, live longer and be more productive in society.
This is something we can control through regulations. We are being fleeced far too often to sit on the sidelines. I cannot understand why we would allow this. I was very disappointed when my private member's bill was defeated, but I was not surprised. It is interesting, though, and I do know that there are other people in the House starting to think about it. After the vote, several members in the House came to me and said they could not support my bill but they would support me on “that evergreening thing”.
They did not understand that evergreening is just a term used for the practice, but the bill dealt with the specific legislative changes for notice of compliance to be removed. They did not understand that, for whatever reason, but I am glad that some members are starting to think about this again.
Maybe they will understand that we can make public policy decisions that not only allow us to put our resources to better areas, but more important, allow people to get access to health care. That provides an opportunity for them to be healthier and not have to depend on the system.