Canada’s Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (Rx&D) recently released their Patented Medicine Prices Review Board’s (PMPRB) 2011 Annual Report. Rx&D members continue to meet their 1987 research and development (SR&ED) goals of 10 percent of sales, but the international and domestic environments have changed substantially and this goal may need to be revised.
The PMPRB report showed that the typical Rx&D member invested an average of 9.75 percent of sales on eligible SR&ED eligible activities. However, this figure does not include collaborative research partnerships with universities, hospitals, centers of excellence,and early-stage biopharmaceutical companies. According to a report by KPMG in 2011, if these collaborations are accounted for, then Rx&D members would have actually invested 28 percent above and beyond what was captured by PMPRB’s 2010 annual report.
Rx&D believes that regulations should be changed in order to more accurately document all pharmaceutical R&D in Canada.
