Industry committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee, for providing Canada's generic pharmaceutical industry with the opportunity to contribute to your study of our domestic intellectual property regime. As you mentioned, I am joined today by Ben Gray. Ben is

Health committee  From the generic company perspective, we have been urging Health Canada to put more resources into drug approval for some time. We have been unhappy with the length of time it takes for drug approvals. On average, it can take 17 to 18 months for a new generic. There is a process

Health committee  That can happen sometimes.

Health committee  I don't have data for you today. Companies sometimes get approval and then find that they are unable to supply a product.

Health committee  Sure. It's fairly common among all manufacturers.

Health committee  I think the issue of drug shortages has been in the media and has been known for some time. Somebody made reference to surveys that pharmacists have done. We've been addressing this, among other issues, with MPs for quite some time. The other point I would make is that we also a

Health committee  We are currently reporting on a voluntary basis because there are no regulations. As we have already explained, our companies are doing everything possible to report on current and future shortages. We are therefore working with all of the stakeholders in the sector and in cooper

Health committee  We have been working with the multi-stakeholder group—which includes doctors, pharmacists, hospital groups, manufacturers, and wholesalers—to put in place the most useful reporting system. We have developed information. Our members are all participating in it. They are all supply

Health committee  I think you heard from Sandoz about the history of their situation. In regard to some of the shortages, I think I might ask Dr. Desai to respond.

Health committee  Our companies are providing anticipated shortages. If they know six months in advance, they would do so. Often, unfortunately, they do not know that.

Health committee  There are two different systems: one for the retail pharmacy pricing and the other for the hospital pricing. With hospital pricing, prices are determined essentially by a tendering system and negotiations with the large buyers and other health care suppliers such as HealthPRO. Th

Health committee  With regard to marketplace issues, I think we were referring to marketplace issues in Canada and internationally. Some of the speakers have mentioned that for some of these older products, there's a diminishing number of suppliers, and that is true. There has been rationalization

Health committee  There are fewer.

Health committee  Prices have been going down worldwide for some of these products, and therefore there are fewer companies that can commercially exist making those products.

Health committee  The reality is that if prices go down too low, and we're relying on suppliers internationally and they go out of business, we will have fewer suppliers available to us. That has been happening. Canadian prices have been declining. Prices have been declining in the U.S. and Europe