Health committee  I'm here to answer questions on behalf of the Innovative Medicines Canada organization—

Health committee  —not on behalf of my independent research. But I'm happy to address the question anyway. The study was done by me and three colleagues through the think tank that I'm the CEO and founder of, the Canadian Health Policy Institute. All of the data sources are explicitly referenced in the study, and all the methodology is explicitly laid out in the study.

Health committee  We took a somewhat different perspective from the Morgan et al paper that was published in the CMAJ. We did not see that there would be, in fact, savings for taxpayers under the scenario of a national universal government-run monopoly approach to pharmacare. We saw that there would be substantial costs to absorbing current private sector expenditures on pharmaceutical-related costs, and that if those were absorbed under a federal plan, it would mean that $25 billion would added to the federal budget.

Health committee  I don't have the data in front of me or committed to memory, but the time from the issuance of a notice of compliance that a drug is safe and effective and should be made available for sale in Canada, in other words approved by Health Canada, to final reimbursement in the public plan is 449 days on average.

Health committee  My first response would be to ask what the likelihood would be that benefits would improve under a national public plan, when we have existing public plans that are not providing adequate access relative to the private sector in Canada or to other countries' public plans. That's our main concern.

Health committee  Sure. I think our industry would take the position that it would be a willing partner at the table with any government decision to move forward in this area. Our main concern would be that we would move from a status quo position that would improve access for everybody and not require decreased access for any Canadian.