Health innovation report supports status quo

The Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) should look into funding a centre of excellence focused on rare diseases. That's among the 22 recommendations in a new report, Technological Innovation in Health Care, released June 12 by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health.

Chaired by Conservative MP Joy Smith, the committee heard from more than 100 witnesses between February 2012 and May 2013 on how Canada is faring when it comes to the development, commercialization and adoption of new technologies, including e-health, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, genomics and nanotechnology, as well as the treatment of chronic and rare diseases.

At more than 100 pages, the report is light on bold recommendations or new insights on the impediments to technological innovation in health care, opting in most cases for a status quo approach. For example, there are no suggestions on how to deal with the patchwork of intellectual property rules across Canada that several witnesses said are hindering industry collaborations.

In his March 7 presentation, Dr Adam Holbrook, associate director for the Centre for Policy Research on Science and Technology at Simon Fraser Univ, recommended the granting councils develop national IP guidelines that universities could adopt voluntarily — a view supported by the committee's Liberal and NDP members.

In a dissenting opinion, the NDP criticized the report for not reflecting the depth of ideas presented by witnesses, particularly the need for strong federal government leadership to ensure equal access to new health practices and technologies.

The report's R&D-related recommendations include:

• Canadian Institutes of Health Research continue to fund e-health research.
• Government continue to support new models of drug development, such as the Structural Genomics Consortium.
• Government maintain its support for genomic sequencing infrastructure through the Canada Foundation for Innovation.
• Government continue to support nanotechnology research. (Liberals recommended that CIHR establish a nanotech institute.)
• Government continue to fund public private partnerships focused on commercialization through the NCE.