Canada would lose out on generic industry investment by adopting EU pharma proposals, warns CGPA

Canada could face a loss of jobs and investment in its R&D intensive and fast-growing generic pharmaceutical industry if the European Union’s pharmaceutical intellectual property proposals in the current Canada-EU trade negotiations are adopted, according to a new report commissioned by the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association (CGPA).

The report notes that the global demand for generic pharmaceuticals is growing at a rate of 10% each year, and the global market is expected to grow to $358 billion by 2016. Canada is currently well positioned to benefit from the global growth of this industry through existing generic pharmaceutical R&D and manufacturing facility investments by several global and Canadian-based companies.

Canada’s generic pharmaceutical industry has a strong industrial base centred in the Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg regions, and employs more than 11,000 Canadians in highly skilled R&D and manufacturing positions. In addition to producing most of the generic drugs sold in the domestic market, copy products manufactured in Canadian facilities are exported to more than 115 countries around the globe. The value of these low-cost exported products exceeds more than C$1 billion ($969.8 million) annually.