Opinion: Pharmaceuticals power province’s exports

Opinion

If we were asked what is Manitoba most valuable export in 2022, many of us might say wheat.

But we would be wrong.

The correct answer is pharmaceuticals, or more specifically medicaments, which include products like vitamins and other compounds that are used for health improvement.

At $2.7 billion, it was more than wheat at $2.1 billion (however provincial records show “oilseeds and products” at a little more than $2.7 billion.)

The point is that it’s a big business that many are not aware of with large manufacturing operations established here that are not going anywhere.

The Bioscience Association of Manitoba (BAM) is keen to figure out ways to leverage that strong footprint into more growth.

Wab Kinew’s new government will likely find out all sorts of things about the province that only the government in power really gets to know.

It will also have to make decisions about grandfathering programs from the previous government.

They are already fully aware that Manitoba’s economy is one of the most diverse in the country but because of that there will be all sort of nooks and crannies that a fresh set of eyes on could come up with different approaches.

For instance, just this past June the province released a Life Sciences Strategy, only the fourth province in the country to do so.

It’s hardly a partisan approach and does not commit the province to spending programs.

And since Manitoba is the second-largest pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturer in Canada — another trivia question that likely most of us would get wrong — it seems reasonable that it might command some focus of attention from the public sector.

Farid Foroud, associate vice-president of Global Public Affairs Canada, focuses on the sector in Western Canada. He knows there is a significant volume of work being done here and believes it’s something that most people are not aware of.

At BAM’s annual meeting on Tuesday, Kim Kline, its president, said, “It has been my goal to elevate the profile of the industry and showcase what we have in Manitoba. We have so much to be proud of.”

For what it’s worth, Foroud believes BAM punches above its weight when it comes to provincial industry associations.

The past five years has seen significant growth in the sector — in the 40 per cent range, although inflation has had an impact. Exports have grown by 170 per cent.

There are more than 700 companies in the sector that generate close to $10 billion in revenue, more than 80 per cent of which are very small.

The majority of the revenue — and especially the export revenue — comes from four players, all of whom have lengthy histories in the province and all of whom are owned by corporations with head offices elsewhere: Bausch Health in Steinbach, one of the largest manufacturing facilities owned by Canada’s largest pharmaceutical company, based in Montreal; IVC Vita Health, the largest manufacturer of generic drugs and vitamins in North America, owned by IVC Nutrition Corporation, a multi-national based in China; Emergent Biosolutions Canada Inc. formerly Cangene Corp. and now owned by Emergent Biosolutions Inc. based outside of Baltimore; and Pfizer Canada, whose Brandon facility uses pregnant mare urine to make a suite of pharmaceuticals. Pfizer is based in New York.

Cangene and Vita Health’s manufacturing operation were once locally owned. All four companies are not known for their free flow of information about what goes on at their Winnipeg facilities.

Foroud pointed out that the operations of the large pharmaceutical multinational companies in Canada are largely based in Montreal and Toronto but their operations are mostly marketing and market access related.

“Manitoba is unique in that there’s lots of manufacturing. It’s produced right here,” he said. “Not a lot of people know that.”

The end goal of Kline’s challenge to raise awareness is to attract more investment and to grow employment in the sector that’s already at about 14,000.

Manitoba has its share of research and development facilities but it woefully lags in public sector R & D investment. (For instance, the province of Saskatchewan invests more than twice as much as Manitoba.)

BAM is investing in billboards touting the sector’s heft and its pre-eminence, when it comes to exports, over the province’s more well known traditional ag products like grain and pork.

The province’s official life science strategy includes a lot of talk about collaboration and partnerships. It’s what a small province like Manitoba has to depend on to grow what’s already here.

“When I talk about medicaments sometimes the stakeholders don’t know what’s here,” Kline said. “If we don’t know what’s here how can we expect others to know? And how can we attract innovation or investment dollars?”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca

Martin Cash
Reporter

Martin Cash has been writing a column and business news at the Free Press since 1989. Over those years he’s written through a number of business cycles and the rise and fall (and rise) in fortunes of many local businesses.

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