Industry committee  Thank you for giving me the time. I'm going to draw attention to something that Mr. Abbott said. He said that medicines sent abroad have to comply with “strict compliance guidelines”. Those were his words. He's right. Strict compliance guidelines are not the same as law. Law i

Industry committee  Merci. We have to be pragmatic about what CAMR can and cannot do. A bit of a strange argument occurred to me while sitting here, but I'll make it, really out of intellectual curiosity more than anything else. You could make the argument that the CAMR is the most successful law

Industry committee  But the reality is that there are other things that can be done and must be done. We excel in the technical field. So let us train. Let us provide laboratory assistance. Let us provide greater foreign aid funding. The government has recently increased contribution to the global f

Industry committee  Probably not. Where economic matters are concerned, there are always several factors, several reasons that we can point to and, in this case, one of those reasons is certainly the lack of competition. In addition, perhaps Canadian manufacturers are used to being more profitable t

Industry committee  May I answer in English?

Industry committee  I'm sorry that you do.

Industry committee  I did not say the word “incompetent”, and I don't believe it.

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I did not call Canadian generics incompetent. That is not the case, and the record will show that. What I did say is that they are more high-priced than other generic producers. This is simply a reality. Don't shoot the messenger. That's what the federal go

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Rota. India has increased its manufacturing capacity. It is a very large country. It can lay on new assembly lines and it has done so. As India comes under the patent regime, I agree that this is a challenge. But India is best placed to solve it, because India, re

Industry committee  We're not solely dependent on them. And as I pointed out, there are over 30 countries that have the CAMR system. I don't think India will run into that limit, but let me assume you're right. If they do run into a limit, there are 27 countries in the European Union that can pick u

Industry committee  Yes. I really must say I found Rachel's answer not properly analytic on this issue. Let me be very frank. She said that other countries are waiting to see what Canada does before invoking their CAMR-like laws. That hypothesizes that China, India, and the European Union aren't cl

Industry committee  That is a very good question. We do have a serious problem in the fact that the virus mutates. It's evolution just as Charles Darwin laid it out. After a few years, first-line medicines are no longer effective. We now need second-line medicines. Fortunately, they are available in

Industry committee  That is totally false. India has legislation that is almost identical to Canada's Access to Medicines Regime. Pardon me, but I will have to explain this in English.

Industry committee  I cannot emphasize this point enough. There are over 30 countries with CAMR-like laws. In the wake of the WTO decision, Canada was the second country to pass a law. Norway was first, we were second, but then about 30 more did, including all 27 countries of the EU. If none of thos

Industry committee  It's very simple. What Apotex did was a stunt for publicity. They announced a price for a triple formulation and were unable to sell it for about two years. They then halved the price—it went from 38¢ a tablet down to 19¢. I may be off by a penny. They halved the price, made a si