Canada Lags In Pharma Research

Interesting article by John Bergeron regarding Canada's place in pharmaceuticals.

Excerpt:

"...Despite the enormous amount spent annually on research and development in Canada, decline in discovery research across the country has been accelerating. Discovery research has traditionally been the mission of research universities and is recognized through awards such as Nobel Prizes. But Canada has only one Nobel Prize in medicine, awarded in 1923 to Frederick Banting and John Macleod for the discovery of insulin. Compare that to Boston, where the Harvard Medical School alone claims eight different Nobel winners in medicine, including two expatriate Canadians from McGill University. In New York City, the small Rockefeller University, a research-focused institution, has no fewer than 15 Nobel laureates in medicine; its most recent, the late Ralph Steinman (who received the award posthumously, in 2011), was also an expatriate Canadian from McGill. The president of Rockefeller, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, is a Canadian Rhodes Scholar from McGill. Clearly, Canada generates talent, but we seem to be unable to provide talented Canadian researchers with top-notch opportunities here at home, in Montreal or elsewhere..."