Left to right: The Globe and Mail business of health reporter Chris Hannay speaks with Congruence Therapeutics CEO Dr. Clarissa Desjardins, managing director of healthcare investment banking for RBC capital markets Amy Woods and executive vice-president of science and research at University Health Network Dr. Bradly Wouters during a panel discussion.Maria Gagliardi Aragon/The Globe and Mail
How can Canada remove barriers between medical breakthroughs and the people who need them?
That was the central question tackled at Canada’s Health Innovation Challenge, a day-long event on Oct. 23, hosted by The Globe and Mail and sponsored by Lilly Canada. Conversations explored challenges and opportunities as peer countries move ahead with discovery and delivery of life-changing medications and treatments – in the context of Canada’s long history of medical innovation.
“Our goal must be not just to discover the future of better health care, but also to deliver it to patients in Canada and to the world,” said Michelle McLean, president and CEO of HealthCareCAN, a national organization representing health-care organizations and hospitals. “An innovation that never reaches the patient is a potential left unrealized.”
In her opening presentation, Reality Check: Is Canada Keeping Pace?, McLean pointed to sobering stats that reflect the current state of play: Canadians only have access to 18 per cent of medications available globally, and the country ranks last in the G7 for timely access to medications. Combine that with an aging population and health-care professionals who are stretched thin — Canada has just 2.7 practicing physicians per 1,000 people — and it exposes an overworked system that lacks capacity to keep up with the pace of innovation.
McLean also noted the “scale of the challenge is also [the] scale of the opportunity.” The theme continued later in the day with a panel featuring industry executives who shared insights with the audience at The Globe and Mail’s Toronto office about how Canada can build on its strength in research to improve patient outcomes.
“We’re really great at the ‘new knowledge’ creation,” said Dr. Clarissa Desjardins, CEO of Congruence Therapeutics, referencing Canadian universities “punching above their weight” in terms of articles published, and a growing culture of entrepreneurship that’s supported by emerging venture capital players. “We’re successful, but we’re very small, and a little bit invisible.”
The size of Canada’s life sciences industry means Canadians who are developing new drugs must seek outside investment, often from companies in the United States or abroad. This means other countries profit from Canadian intellectual property, while slowing access to medications within the country. “We need more [Canadian] biotechs to succeed so we can recoup the economic benefits here in Canada of our own innovations,” Dr. Desjardins said.
There is optimism, however, that the landscape is shifting. “I’ve never seen the interest in [strengthening healthcare innovation] like it is today,” said Dr. Bradly Wouters, executive vice-president of science and research at the University Health Network (UHN). “That interest comes from all sectors – from our business community, our political leaders, the life sciences sector.”
Technology may also be on our side, Dr. Wouters added.
“We’re at a very unique time in history in terms of what’s possible,” he said. “The creativity, the acceleration of development with AI in drug development, in vaccines, in cell therapies. I’m extremely optimistic about how the biotech industry is going to bring new effective therapies into the health-care system, and Canada’s got to be a part of it.”
The consequences of falling behind, however, are stark — for both Canadians in need as well as the industry as a whole.
Left to right: The Globe and Mail health reporter André Picard, IgAN Canada hub patient partner advocate Ruchi Ambike, and cystic fibrosis patient advocate Hilary Becker talk about the human cost of delayed medication approvals for Canadians.Maria Gagliardi Aragon/The Globe and Mail
Hilary Becker, a cystic fibrosis (CF) patient advocate who herself lives with the disease, shared her journey to access Trikafta, an innovative drug to treat the lung condition.
While Trikafta has been available to patients in the United States since 2019, the pharmaceutical company that manufactured the medicine was slow to bring it to Canada because of limitations in the Canadian drug formulary for high-cost drugs. When Trikafta was fast-tracked for approval by Health Canada in 2021, the next hurdle was getting it funded by provincial plans, which happened later that year.
“That’s two years since it was accessible in the States,” Becker said. “That’s two years where people were dying of CF, waiting for lung transplants and spending months and months at a time living in hospital needing very intensive medical care.”
While they waited, Becker said, “patients were screaming for access to a drug we know can change our lives while people across the border have access to it.”
There is a global aspect to keeping up in the race for innovation, too.
“We don’t want to wake up in a world where every medicine we want or need is sourced from one country,” said Eli Lilly chair and CEO David Ricks in a fireside conversation with Globe and Mail health reporter Chris Hannay, referring to China’s growing share of drug innovation and production.
When it comes to the Canadian context, Ricks was blunt in his assessment of our country’s place in this global race. “As a destination for production, for company, and certainly as a place where patient care can adopt these innovations and elevate the quality and duration of life,” Ricks said, “it has been a laggard.”
Ricks went on to add that this global race is about to accelerate, making this a timely discussion, before pointing to three main factors driving the urgency of this conversation: Healthcare systems in the developed world that aren’t equipped to handle or fund the needs of an aging population; the growing dominance of China when it comes to production and research; and, for Canada specifically, the lack of a “comprehensive strategy” that harnesses our local talent for national gain.
“The brilliant minds that are in Canada, that’s indisputable,” Ricks said, pointing to Lilly’s own Canadian innovations like insulin, and more recently, researcher Daniel Drucker’s breakthrough research for GLP-1s drugs. “That’s a national resource, but it has not been converted into economic activity, and I think that’s a shame.”
“It’s a time for choosing, for this country and others, about whether you want to embrace life sciences and pharma,” he added. “It will get more difficult faster to recruit trials, get new medicines here or to grow an industry.”
To hear more insights from industry leaders and watch the event in full, visit The Globe and Mail Events Youtube page.