Health committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for giving me the opportunity today to testify about this matter which is of great importance to the members of BIOTECanada. Today we are talking about technological innovation, with a particular focus on commercialization and venture capital

Health committee  Thank you for knowing I'm a Mr. and not a doctor. I think that's entirely correct. We've got a system where academic research drives stuff out without a lot of recognition of what the industry would like to see brought forward. If we could work more closely together at an earlie

Health committee  Yes. I wouldn't say there are barriers. I would say we need to be very vigilant, because some of the other comments are exactly right. There are a number of different ways to skin this cat, if you will. No magic bullet is going to solve all this. When I talk of hosting conditio

Health committee  I would echo the sentiment that we're probably not in a world where we're trying to reinvent the wheel. I would say, though, that we have to be cautious not to be afraid of some failure. You can turn that around and become overly cautious because you're afraid to fail. I think

Health committee  That's the entire fund. It's $400 million—$125 million was set aside for life sciences and clean technology.

Health committee  It was $125 million for life sciences and clean technology as a bundle.

Health committee  No. Essentially what the government is doing is putting funds into a VC and hoping to leverage private sector funds that will exceed that by I think a third or three times that amount. They would be the first in, first out, so it de-risks it. It's essentially a way to reinvigorat

Health committee  I wish it were within my purview to do so. No, the way it's being structured is still in development. We're working closely with the Department of Finance, and the minister has put in place a senior representative from the industry to basically define the parameters and how it ca

Health committee  I have not seen any definitions like that attached to it. I think you want to have it as flexible as possible so that it can run in a number of different directions. You don't want to have it driven by pure job numbers or geographical locations. I think you want to make sure th

Health committee  Absolutely. The industry is going to have to come up with some money, yes.

Health committee  Thank you for your indulgence, Madam Chair. Very quickly, the car was a wonderful invention, but the assembly line was one of the processes that allowed the car to be commercial. Likewise, in our industry, I have a number of member companies. I'll give one example, which was wor

International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is a great pleasure to be here with you today to talk about this issue, which is very important for the biotechnology industry. Thank you very much for the opportunity this morning to provide testimony on your study of CETA, the Canada-Europe free tra

International Trade committee  I think if you're talking statistically, it has not measured out. You're talking about the PMPRB measurement stick that's been put in place.

International Trade committee  Okay. What you're looking at there is a measurement mechanism that was put in place when the Patent Act was expanded back in 1987. That was done at a time when the industry was very different from the industry that exists in Canada right now. So the first argument I would mak

International Trade committee  No. I haven't seen any particular studies that would do that, but I can say we're talking about investors that are global. They are around the planet. They are all looking for their opportunities. Ms. Cobden's industry is looking for the same investors. They have the capital, an