Health committee  Thank you, Madam Chair, and good morning, honourable members. We want to thank you for providing Canada's generic pharmaceutical industry with the opportunity to contribute to your study of the domestic drug supply system. As the chair said, I am Jim Keon, president of the Cana

International Trade committee  Yes, we can table documentation on research and development spending and how it has declined despite increased intellectual property protection in Canada. We can also table where the new research and development spending is going internationally.

International Trade committee  We have presented the study to the federal government, to the chief negotiator. We've had good access in terms of presenting our issues. The costs are a major element of these proposals, particularly, as you said, with provincial governments, but also with large payers. We noted

International Trade committee  The study you're referring to was done by two of the leading economists in the pharmaceutical sector in Canada: Aidan Hollis at the University of Calgary and Paul Grootendorst at the University of Toronto. It's their numbers. They simply looked at the recent launches of generic

Industry committee  I think generic companies are businesses. They look at developing products, typically as patents expire. They have a timeframe for that, and with this bill, you'd be looking at developing a product or a developing country market, not a Canadian market, not a U.S. market, not a Eu

Industry committee  I would reiterate in part what others said today. We're here reviewing this particular piece of legislation, CAMR, and suggested amendments to it. We generally support the bill, subject to the one clarification. In terms of medicines, that's what the companies that I represent m

Industry committee  I meant our companies that I represent in the association.

Industry committee  Each company must decide if it wants to use the current legislation. It's clear that, in Canada, the legislation is complex. Other companies know what happened in the Apotex case and, for now, they have decided that it's not worth their while to try to use the legislation. As I

Industry committee  I think Apotex is a leader in Canada. It took the opportunity, the challenge, and went forward. I would say that there was tremendous enthusiasm within that company. People worked long hours, they worked weekends and evenings to try to get the product approved as quickly as possi

Industry committee  As I mentioned, the generic companies are major contributors to Health Partners International. That's the group in Canada that deals most consistently with donations of medicines abroad, so we work very actively with them. Generics are now again filling the majority of the medici

Industry committee  I do not.

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We're pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-393. I represent the generic pharmaceutical industry, which has been an important part of the Canadian economy and health care system for more than 50 years. We ar

Health committee  We presented our comments today in the context of the 10-year health care plan. The 10-year health care plan has a national pharmaceutical strategy, and an important element of that for the provinces is faster access to generics. We're trying to save money. We've reached accord

Health committee  No. We've said many times we were very surprised and very disappointed at the short consultation period.

Health committee  The topic I focused on today was faster access to non-patented generic medicines, which was one of the objectives of the national pharmaceutical strategy of the 10-year health care plan. As I mentioned, the provinces have taken a number of measures to do that. Where the problem h