Review of the Pharmaceutical Industry of Canada

This paper discusses three important aspects of the Canadian pharmaceutical industry: compulsory licensing (CL), price control on patented drugs and the R&D scenario. Unlike other developed countries, which have adopted the route of providing higher intellectual property rights (IPRs) protection to promote the growth of the domestic pharmaceutical industry, Canada chose to limit IPRs on important pharmaceutical products. Till the early 1990s, Canada stood alone among the developed countries in using CLs for pharmaceutical patents held in Canada, which helped the promotion of the domestic generic industry. Interestingly, though the pharmaceutical industry of both countries has common points of comparison, the most important point of divergence is that while the Indian pharmaceutical industry is backed by a well-established homegrown chemical industry, Canada lacks this advantage.