Health committee  There are a couple of corrections. It's not the same company. It's a different company. The actual ratio between the price of Cystagon and the price of Procysbi is even more outrageous, I would say. It was closer to $5,000 a year for Cystagon and about $300,000 for Procysbi. I

Health committee  There's about a 15%, or 30%, or maybe double price markup, but a 60-fold markup is unheard of. I think it speaks for itself.

Health committee  Sure. I should specify that there are three legal instruments that make up the legal framework of the PMPRB: the Patent Act, the regulations and our guidelines. The act is obviously the responsibility of Parliament, the MPs. The regulations are the responsibility of the Minister

Health committee  That's a great question. We are doing the best we can with the tools currently at our disposal, but it's for that very reason that we are trying to move forward with these quite ambitious reforms that I alluded to. I would say today, no, we are not doing a very good job, but it

Health committee  That's absolutely correct, yes.

Health committee  No, no that's fine.

Health committee  It was in 1987.

Health committee  We've been quite transparent in acknowledging that fact. There is no natural connection between the degree of patent protection a country offers and the level of R and D. You can do your research and development in China and still benefit from the same term of protection in Canad

Health committee  It's eight.

Health committee  It could. I think the important thing to understand about data protection is that it typically operates in parallel to patent protection and runs now for 10 years. It did run for eight, and patent protection is 20 years from filing, so typically data protection is almost redundan

Health committee  Okay. I didn't get to the insulin question, and I apologize.

Health committee  Yes.

Health committee  To be quite candid, I don't think anything Canada does has an impact on global R and D and innovation on a macro level. I suspect the same conversations probably took place back in the fifties and sixties, when Tommy Douglas was advocating medicare and a publicly funded health ca

Health committee  They're definitely very expensive.

Health committee  To start, I will address the first part of your question. I think it behooves me to correct a common misunderstanding or misapprehension about R and D costs related to very rare orphan drugs. If you look at the literature, it's pretty clear that R and D costs to bring a drug for