2010 BIO International Convention — Official Opening of the Canada Pavilion

Speaking Points

The Honourable Tony Clement, PC, MP
Minister of Industry

Chicago, Illinois
May 4, 2010

Check Against Delivery

Thank you, Peter. I am delighted to welcome everyone to the official opening of the Canada Pavilion at the 2010 BIO International Convention.

I am also pleased to acknowledge our Canadian premiers here with us. Welcome Ed Stelmach, Robert Ghiz, et bienvenue Jean Charest.

Once again, we've created a terrific showcase for Canadian life sciences.

Congratulations to everyone involved in making this happen.

This is my third participation at BIO and, I must say, Canada's presence is always impressive and demonstrates a national effort involving all levels of government, academia and industry.

Canada is a leader in biotechnology and genomics research. This is thanks, in part, to the investments of the National Research Council Canada, the granting councils, Genome Canada and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. That leadership extends to research and our industry's expertise in areas such as cancer, vaccines and clinical trials.

Globally, Canada's biotechnology companies continue to have the second largest number of products in development, with only the United States ahead of us.

The global financial crisis, however, has been hard on the life sciences sector — particularly on access to the financing needed for research and development (R&D).

But, we are starting to see some signs of a turnaround. According to the Ernst & Young annual report on global biotechnology, which was just released, the Canadian biotechnology industry raised more than 733 million U.S. dollars in 2009 — an increase of 255 million U.S. dollars from 2008.

The report cautioned, however, that there is a “new normal” where firms best poised for success are those with new approaches to R&D and creative models for funding and partnering.

Canada's long-term economic well-being depends, as never before, on ideas, innovation and inventiveness. Increasing business investments in R&D is crucial to the industry's long-term competitiveness.

Our job as a government is to create the right environment for business through supportive economic policies that make our companies more competitive and our country more attractive to international investors.

One of the ways we are doing that is through Canada's Science and Technology (S&T) Strategy. One of the Strategy's four priority research areas is health and related life sciences and technologies. Our S&T Strategy encourages companies to invest in R&D, support research excellence, align university research with the needs of business, and ensure that firms have access to highly skilled workers.

Since 2006, this government has committed close to $8.5 billion to science, technology and innovation initiatives.

Recent budgets have provided measures to strengthen partnerships in the areas of research, technology transfer, centres of excellence and private sector R&D.

We're also exploring ways to improve Canada's global competitiveness in clinical research. We are encouraging industry R&D through Canada's Scientific Research and Experimental Development tax incentive program — the single largest federal program supporting business R&D, providing over $3 billion in tax assistance in 2009.

To help improve access to venture capital, our government's most recent budget eliminates the need for tax reporting under section 116 of the Income Tax Act for many investments. This will improve the ability of our businesses to attract foreign venture capital.

As a result, we are beginning to hear from respected U.S. financial analysts that they now see better opportunities to invest in Canada.

Ladies and gentlemen, Canada continues to rank among the global leaders in life sciences.

One such company is OncoGenex, which is developing cancer therapies — and I understand they will be awarded BIOTECanada's Gold Leaf Award as Canadian biotech company of the year for 2010 later today. Congratulations.

The Canada Pavilion celebrates our Canadian excellence and is an opportunity to develop important partnerships.

I thank you for joining us today and wish you all the best at BIO 2010.