SUPPORT FOR CANADIAN CENTER

One of the problems that Canada's pharmaceutical industry has is that it is dominated by foreign companies which do not carry out R&D in the country, according to Colin Mallet, chairman of the Institute for Research in Industrial Pharmacy.

But now, the institute has received C.$6 million ($5 million) from federal and Quebec governments to build laboratories and offices over the next year, according to local reports. Drug researchers throughout Canada are said to be in support of the new pharmaceutical research center, which will be built in the Montreal area.

Mr Mallet, who is also president of Sandoz Canada, commented that until now this kind of work has been carried out at university faculties of pharmacy, without a national center to coordinate work by academics.