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News Releases CGPA Statement Regarding Big Pharma Analysis of Economic Impact Assessment of European Union’s Proposed Pharmaceutical IP Provisions under CETA Toronto, March 31, 2011 – The following is a statement by Jim Keon, President of the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association (CGPA), about the report released today by brand-name drug companies: "It is disappointing, but not surprising, that the brand-name pharmaceutical industry has, in its overzealous drive for ever-longer market monopolies in Canada, chosen to attack two of Canada’s most respected academics on pharmaceutical policy. Professor Aidan Hollis of the Department of Economics at the University of Calgary and Paul Grootendorst from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Pharmacy have both been published extensively on pharmaceutical issues in Canada. Most recently, they co-authored a report on pharmaceutical expenditure in Canada for the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation (CHSRF). Their February 2011 report, The Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic & Trade Agreement: An Economic Impact Assessment of Proposed Pharmaceutical Intellectual Property Provisions, found that changes to Canada’s drug patent system proposed by the European Union (EU) would add nearly $3-billion annually to Canada’s prescription drug bill. The study was commissioned by CGPA and released on February 7, 2011.The study is available at www.canadiangenerics.ca. Brand-name drug companies are trying to convince Canadians that if we do not concede to their demands for longer monopolies, and accept the resulting higher prescription drug costs, there can be no trade deal. That self-serving insinuation is patently false. The generic pharmaceutical industry is a strong advocate for enhanced trade, and supports efforts by the Government of Canada to reduce trade barriers. Fully 40 percent of the Canadian production of generic prescription drugs is for export to more than 115 countries. Raw materials and other inputs are sourced on the international market. Extending market monopolies for brand-name drugs as proposed by the EU, however, will not reduce trade barriers. It will raise trade barriers for Canadian generic manufacturers and increase revenues for European-based drug companies at the expense of Canada’s health-care system. Canada’s current intellectual property regime for pharmaceuticals exceeds our international treaty obligations and provides greater protections to brand-name drug companies than those afforded any other industrial sector. Market monopolies for brand-name drug companies have been increased in Canada no fewer than eight times since 1987, yet investments continue to decline. In its latest annual report, the federal government’s Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB) reported that research and development spending in Canada by brand-name drug companies has dropped to its lowest level in 20 years. Domestic R&D spending by pharmaceutical patentees represents just 7.5 percent of their Canadian revenues, far below the 10 percent threshold to which the industry committed in 1987 when market monopolies for brand-name companies were increased. The PMPRB also reports that patentees reported spending $237-million on basic research into new drugs in 2009, just 1.8 percent of their Canadian sales. An article published in the March 2011 edition of the journal BioSocieties, a publication of the London School of Economics, found that the real cost of research and development to bring a new drug to market varies from $13-million to $204-million, a fraction of the $1-billion used to justify ever-longer market monopolies." About the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association For more information, please contact: |
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