Last week it was announced that the German firm TVM Capital will manage a Montréal fund dedicated to the life sciences sector and meant to allow the multinational pharmaceutical Eli Lilly, amongst others, to set up shop in Québec’s metropolis.
With $150M planned investments, does this mean that Québec’s industrial policy regarding biotech has suddenly been brought back to life? No, actually, it doesn’t.
On the contrary, the time has come to assess how effective policies regarding the pharmaceutical industry are. For some twenty years, Québec has put everything in place to attract giants of this powerful industry. The aim was obviously to take advantage of the spillovers regarding investments, research, employment, etc.
But are these spillovers worth it when compared to the financial incentives offered to the industry?
The recent layoffs in pharmaceutical companies in Québec (more than 350 in 2012 alone) bring the total number of job loses in this sector to more than 3,000 in the last five years (last week’s announcement would generate a dozen jobs for the time being) and leads us to believe that the spillovers are decreasingly attractive.
This impression is well-founded, but the roots of the problem are deeper.
Marc-André Gagnon, professor at Carleton University and associate-researcher at IRIS, published an article on the topic in the latest issue of a journal entitled Interventions économiques which came out last week. The title translates as “Financial subsidies to Quebec’s pharmaceutical industry: are they worth it?”
In this article, Gagnon locates the foundations of the current policies in the Mulroney government’s 1987 reform of legislation regarding patented medicines.
Ever since, pharmaceutical firms have taken advantage of the state’s generosity thanks to four types of subsidies to the industry.
Firstly, tax credits. The federal government offers to large firms a 20% credit for R&D, to which Québec adds a further 17.50%. For small businesses, these tax credits reach 35% and 37,50% respectively, for a combined rate of over 60%. This tax measure equals deductions of $233M for Québec pharmaceutical companies, taking into account only the federal tax credits.
Secondly, there is the pricing policy. Canada allows the industry to set a price cap contingent to comparisons with countries where medicines are more expensive. If the price of medicines patented in Québec was comparable to those available in France, in the United Kingdom, or in New Zealand, the people of Québec could save between $266M and $1,496M.
The province of Québec adds to these policies the 15-year rule, which guarantees companies producing brand-name medication that the government drug plan will completely repay patients for their medicines even after generic medication has reached the market (a cost of over $160M). Finally, since 2008 Ontario and Québec have been waging a subsidy war to attract companies on their territory. These subsidies are added to other measures and cost between $27M and $45M to the state of Québec.
The sum total of these subsidies appears in the following table, taken from Marc-André Gagnon’s article:
| Type of subsidy | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|
| Tax credits | 233 |
| Additional costs due to patented medicines pricing policy | In comparison with the 6th costliest: 266
In comparison with France: 333 In comparison with the United Kingdom: 467 In comparison with New Zealand: 1496 |
| 15-year rule | 162 |
| Direct subsidies to firms | Minimum: 27
Maximum: 45 |
| Total | Minimum: 688
Maximum: 1936 |
Therefore, an assessment of Québec’s pharmaceutical strategy leads us to conclude that the current approach is no longer justified. In fact, the spillovers would be far greater if Québec chose instead to directly finance public research, e.g. by setting up a public research lab. It would be free from the industry’s commercial constraints which often gear private research towards developing products which complement already existing medicines rather then towards pursuing significant therapeutic innovation.
And there is no need to go to North Korea to find inspiration: the U.S. government announced last year that it would set up and fund a public pharmaceutical lab.
We should point out that the investment plan bringing together TVM Capital and Eli Lilly was made possible by a $65M investment by Teralys Capital. The latter fund is a creation of the Caisse de dépôts et de placements, the Fonds de solidarité FTQ, and Invest Québec. Again, a lot of money thrown in by the government.
Marc-André Gagnon’s full article is available online in French on Interventions économiques’s website.
You can also watch a video of Marc-André Gagnon, in English, about pharmacare in Canada.
