Drugging for dollars

Getting in on the ground floor of the human guinea pig business can lead to a gravy train as the drugs make their way to market

By: Colleen Fuller

  Human drug trials unfold in several stages. The first, and most important, phase generally involves a small group of healthy people who take an experimental drug for three or four months. It is this make-or-break test that shows researchers whether or not the drug is toxic, and if all is well, lets them proceed to the next three trial stages. The final step in the experimental phase is tests on patients who will be the drug maker's target market. After that - pending a passing grade - it's on to a prominent shelf in the coveted global drug store.
 

Drug and biotech firms are now spending an estimated 40 percent of their research budgets on drug trials

  There is a huge and growing market in the drug experiment business around the world, and Ottawa is determined to carve out a corner in this mega-billion dollar global market. In 1998, drug firms spent a mere $363 million in clinical drug trials in Canada, compared with worldwide annual sales of about $16 billion.
  Drug and biotech firms are now spending an estimated 40 percent of their research budgets on drug trials, in part to win what's called "optimal positioning" in the marketplace. Some (if not most) of the biggest trials are not for treatment of complex diseases such as cancer, but rather in areas that already are glutted with highly-competitive products, such as anti-cholesterol or osteoporosis drugs. Clinical trials are conducted to identify the smallest differences among similar products that can then be highlighted in aggressive marketing campaigns.
  Enter Canada's 140 contract research organisations (CROs), groups that are hired by biotech and pharmaceutical companies to oversee the regulatory journey from lab to market. Most of these companies are located in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Hospitals, universities and governments are bending over backwards to make that journey as hassle-free as possible, hoping that the powerful drug and biotech industries will throw investment dollars their way. If Phase I trials are begun in Canada, it is likely that the next three experiment levels will be conducted here as well, using the same researchers and facilities that began the process.
  Industry Canada estimates that if a CRO nurtures a drug through the first phase, it will capture between 5 and 10 percent of the drug's worldwide sales. But if it oversees the experiment through to the end of Phase 3 trials, those earnings increase to 35 percent.
  Those figures were behind the recent announcement by Canadian corporate health conglomerate MDS Inc. that it's buying CRO giant Pheonix International Life Sciences for $500 million, a move that will make MDS the fifth largest CRO in the world.
  The impressive arithmetic has also surely played a role in shaping government policy, which aims to be as hospitable as possible to the pharmaceutical companies whose pill cups clearly runneth over with cash.

Vancouverite Colleen Fuller is an independent health researcher, a member of the board of directors the Council of Canadians, and a research associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). She is also author of "Caring for Profit, How Corporations Are Taking Over Canada's Health Care System" (New Star Books/CCPA).

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