A ‘New’ New Perspective on the Health of Canadians: Transformation through Partnership

First published February 25, 2025 on TheFutureEconomy.ca and has since been updated to reflect more current Statistics Canada data.

By: Dr. Daniel Edgcumbe, Vice President of Medical & Regulatory Affairs and Country Medical Director at Roche Canada

More than fifty years ago, Marc Lalonde wrote that the Canadian healthcare system “can do little more than serve as a catchment net for the victims”. The then Minister of National Health and Wellness expressed concern at unsustainable growth in spending on healthcare. He also noted the absence of a uniform and integrated health records system, inequitable access, and an excessive focus on physician-centred and acute hospital care. “A New Perspective on the Health of Canadians” was internationally feted as a visionary work. It extolled the virtues of preventative care and system transformation. However, despite decades of intervening efforts, many of these challenges are even more pressing today.

In its 2023 report, “Addressing Canada’s Health Workforce Crisis”, The Standing Committee on Health described labour shortages and widespread burnout. For patients, this often means long wait times for treatment, difficulty accessing family doctors, and health outcomes dependent on your income or your ethnicity.

People are living longer, but not necessarily enjoying added years of health. One in four Canadians will be 65 years of age or older by 2043. More and more are also living with chronic diseases, most of which develop over decades.

Advances in technology can help to mitigate some of the pressures, but patients in Canada often face significant barriers. Among the G7 group, Canada ranks last for access to new medicines. The promise of innovation is squandered if it does not reach patients.

As a medical student, physician, and later hospital and health systems leader, my exposure to industry collaboration was almost non-existent. Discussions about pharmaceutical companies were seldom had, and when they were, it was only with dire warnings about the risks (especially if they had sponsored lunch). It is therefore perhaps not surprising that many healthcare leaders do not have a lot of experience or confidence in collaborating with the pharmaceutical industry. If we do not think about collaboration differently, we’ll be making a huge mistake and missing out on valuable opportunities.

Healthcare system transformation is extremely difficult. No one has all the answers. It is precisely for this reason that we must be more open to public-private partnerships. By fostering cross-sectoral collaboration among government, healthcare providers and institutions, the private sector, and academia, we can collectively tackle these challenges. Innovative partnerships have the potential to enhance patient care, facilitate the adoption of new technology, and strengthen our economy.

The Value Proposition for Public-Private Partnerships

At their best, public-private partnerships are founded on deeply aligned interests. Ensuring that as many patients as possible get the best care is a powerful motivator. The most effective collaborations also capitalize on the unique knowledge and capabilities of each party. The outcome is a transformation that none could have achieved (or sometimes even imagined) by themselves.

Publicly funded healthcare providers and systems have deep operational expertise and clinical knowledge. They are extraordinarily adept at navigating the complicated context in which they operate. Importantly, they can also often answer the “so what?” question which connects science to the outcomes which are most meaningful to patients, clinicians, and funders.

Private industry offers a deep talent pool, with a vast range of expertise. Large companies, such as Roche, can leverage their global networks. The data scientist supporting a project in rural Alberta could be based in Mississauga or Madrid. In the private sector, there is also often a level of agility and innovation which is difficult to replicate in publicly-funded settings.  By sharing risks, responsibilities, and expertise, public-private partnerships offer considerable benefits –  enhancing innovation, reducing costs, and increasing efficiencies in service delivery.

Advancing Patient Care and Health Systems Transformation

No two patients are the same; each one requires a different treatment plan. However patients do not always have access to a full range of options. Sometimes treatments are not available or accessible. Access to care varies greatly between provinces, and even between rural and urban areas within the same province.

Roche is actively addressing this by leveraging the power of public-private partnerships, as these collaborations help accelerate the adoption of innovation.

For example, in June 2024, Roche Canada partnered with Horizon Health Network, the New Brunswick Extra-Mural Program (EMP), the Government of New Brunswick, and ResearchNB, with support from the Vitalité Health Network. Previously, patients diagnosed with lung cancer had to travel to a hospital for a slow intravenous infusion. Now some can receive an injection from a nurse in minutes, without having to leave the comfort of their own home.

Thanks to this innovative research-based partnership, patients will soon have access to an option which shortens treatment time, offers more flexibility, and reduces the burden on hospital-based services.

Integrating research into everyday clinical practice is part of a learning health system. This enables clinicians to generate, understand, and use new evidence for decision-making. We need to pursue more opportunities like this across the country.

Driving Economic Growth

Beyond healthcare delivery, public-private partnerships boost the economy. These collaborations stimulate growth by creating jobs, nurturing innovation ecosystems, and attracting foreign investment. 

The pharmaceutical sector already provides strong economic benefits to Canada. In 2022, the pharmaceutical sector invested up to $3.2 billion in R&D, supported over 110,000 high-value full-time jobs across the country, and generated $18.4 billion in total economic activity in Canada. Public-private partnerships act as a magnet to attract additional funding.

Roche Canada’s recent partnership with the Government of Ontario through its agency, Invest Ontario, is a good example. The Roche decision to situate a Global Informatics Hub at the Mississauga site will bring up to 250 jobs to the province. These highly-skilled roles will focus on innovative areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, computational biology, and data analytics. By ensuring Canada is home to top talent, we will remain internationally competitive.

Advancing Health Innovation

Technological innovation creates new tools for progress in healthcare. AI, in particular, is revolutionizing the field by introducing innovative methods for pharmaceutical and diagnostic developments, ultimately leading to better medical care for patients. The advent of generative AI – systems that can create new content, such as text, images, or music, based on input data or patterns learned from existing data – marks a pivotal moment for the industry, potentially comparable to the introduction of molecular biology in drug discovery during the 1970s. To realize the full potential of AI, it is crucial for the ecosystem to collaborate effectively. This involves generating meaningful and higher-quality data, deploying tools to assist in transforming those insights into action, and building safe spaces for experimentation.

Canada has long been a leader in AI. We took the lead in deep learning early on, thanks to AI pioneers like Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, and Yann LeCun. We were the first country to launch a national AI strategy in 2017. Our country is home to many of the world’s foremost researchers, and a cluster of globally renowned research institutes. 

Reinforcing Canada’s position at the forefront of AI, Roche Canada established AI with Roche (aiR). This public-private partnership has involved all major Canadian AI research institutes,  Amii (Alberta), MILA (Quebec) and the Vector Institute (Ontario), among other stakeholders. The intention of this collaborative is to improve health outcomes through the discovery and application of AI research. Although it is founded on deep academic scholarship, it is only through collaboration that we will be able to fully realize the potential of AI in real-world applications.

Choice must be made

The demands on the Canadian healthcare system have never been greater. More than 50 years ago, Lalonde himself recognized the constrained resources available, concluding that “In the end - by individuals, by society and by governments - choices must be made”.

By remaining open-minded, curious and excited about the opportunities of public-private collaboration, we can choose to realize its transformative power. This will enable us to make the most of those constrained resources, and ensure that Canadians live longer, healthier and happier lives.