Canada’s innovation opportunity

Print 16 February 2016
Jay Taylor / PhRMA

Next month’s visit of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Washington is a chance to strengthen a vital trade and investment partnership and to resolve problems left over by Canada’s previous government. Addressing a series of misguided Canadian court decisions that are harming patients and threatening jobs, growth and innovation on both sides of the border must be high on the agenda.

Based on a novel legal theory used nowhere else in the world, Canadian courts have revoked 24 patents on 20 innovative medicines taken by millions of people suffering from cancer, osteoporosis, diabetic nerve pain and other serious conditions. That legal theory – known as the “promise doctrine” – confounds the time-tested way innovators turn basic research into new treatments and cures. It arbitrarily requires information at the time a patent is filed that typically can only be shown later through clinical trials.

Canadian court actions are harming incentives for investment in new treatments and cures for patients, including for conditions such as Alzheimer’s that do not yet have effective therapies. They are threatening the competiveness of a Canadian economy that is fast falling behind the curve. Since the “promise doctrine” was introduced in 2005, Canada has dropped seven places on the Global Competitiveness Index – behind countries like the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and Qatar. Research and development spending in Canada has declined by more than 30 percent.To urge timely action to bring Canada’s patent system back in line with global rules and norms, we launched a new initiative today called Patents Protect. Protect Patents. Canada’s new government has an opportunity to fix the broken “promise doctrine” and promote the further growth of its own innovative industries. Now is the time to act.

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