Intellectual Property Rights and the Canadian Pharmaceutial marketplace: Where Do We Go From Here?

Now the issue of intellectual property rights has returned The multinational companies claim that the lib- to the agenda partly as a result of the Romanow eralization of the patent laws has increased em- Report but also because drug companies, through ployment in the industry. [...] Initially the review was to begin following Intellectual Property Rights and the Canadian Pharmaceutical Marketplace 5 the summer 2002 parliamentary recess.5 Oppo- to five years, in recognition of the time needed nents of the review pushed the item down the for clinical development, and the delays in get- committee’s agenda and finally in April 2003, two ting the regulatory approvals.7 In return f. [...] The Clerk of the committee explained, tion that Canada should take with regard to IPRs in a letter, that this decision to restrict the hear- as they apply to pharmaceuticals it is useful to ings was the result of the “narrow scope of the review downstream effects in Canada that resulted inquiry” and the “committee’s very full schedule.” from C-22 and C-91. [...] In such case, if it took longer than 4 years to grant a patent.43 the minimum five year market protection referred 45 However, in the case at the WTO against Canada to in the regulation will not apply.” It is not clear filed by the EU, the panel ruled that this type of that the same interpretation would be applied to claim for an extension of the patent term is not a the FTAA agreement article and. [...] Both the public system would be more than offset by the former editor-in-chief of the New England the lower drugs prices that would result from the Journal of Medicine and a staff report from the absence of the patent system.