Prof. Iacobucci: Report on IP Protection for Pharmaceutical Companies

In response to the Canadian Intellectual Property Council’s (CIPC) report earlier this year, which claimed that Canada’s IP regime lags behind that of international competitors, Prof. Edward Iacobucci, Osler Chair in Business Law at the University of Toronto, has prepared his own. He argues that IP protection for pharmaceutical companies in Canada is actually stronger than that of other industrial sectors in Canada, and is in many ways stronger than pharmaceutical IP in the European Union and United States.

Iacobucci contends that, aside from its inadequate comparisons of IP provisions, the CIPC’s recommendations are based on two fundamentally flawed premises that are unexplained and unsupported in the CIPC Report:

1. Failure to Acknowledge Extra Costs to Canadian Consumers: Pharmaceutical IP reflects a trade-off between innovation and access to medicine, yet the report ignores the substantial and predictable costs that will be visited on consumers and governments if Canadian pharmaceutical IP rights are further expanded.
2. Unjustified Link Between IP, Employment and R&D: Although enhancing innovation is laudable, there is no economic reason or empirical evidence that suggests that extending IP protection in Canada will meaningfully increase jobs or research and development (R&D) spending in Canada.  To the contrary, pharmaceutical R&D appears to be moving toward countries having weaker IP, such as India and China.

The article notes that, despite several increases to Canadian IP, investments in R&D as a percentage of sales have for nine years been below the 10 percent threshold the brand-name drug industry committed to in 1987.

The report, “Innovation For a Better Tomorrow: A Critique” was commissioned and released by the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association (CGPA).

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