Health committee  I spend a lot of time with venture capitalists and with business people. I usually describe venture capitalists as people whose thorax is devoid of myocardial tissue. That means they're heartless. One thing that always bothers me is that they always say, “Is this innovative? Is this really good research?

Health committee  Most of my interaction is with CIHR because they fund and all of my interactions with CIHR have been positive. They fund research. They don't pretend to fund commercial. They don't do that, so I have to go out and find venture capital. CIHR, as far as what it does, has been fine.

Health committee  Drug approval is a long process and, let's face it, the Canadian market is small. If you are developing a drug, you are developing it for the U.S. market, the European market, and the Canadian market, because this is an economic thing. No one is going to develop a drug just for a Canadian problem.

Health committee  My standard opening is that if we learn through failure, I ought to be a bloody genius. We talk a lot about innovation. We hear the word “innovation”. I find it to be a horribly over-used, abused, misused word. It's in everything now, from television ads all the way out. Everything's supposed to be “innovative”.