Good afternoon.

My name is Annie Beauchemin, and I'm with Boehringer Ingelheim. I am joined by my colleague, Mehmood Alibhai.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the Standing Committee on Health, for the opportunity and for inviting us to provide testimony today. We appreciate it, especially given the circumstances we find ourselves in.

As we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic has truly transformed our society this year. We want to start by thanking you for all your ongoing work in the face of adversity, particularly your efforts to continue the important work that Canadians elected you to undertake in Parliament.

Since Boehringer Ingelheim began operating in Canada almost 40 years ago, we have proudly played an integral role in the health of Canadians. Headquartered in Burlington, Ontario, we employ approximately 600 people across Canada, and we are committed to finding medical breakthroughs and investing in research, development and medicine therapies that fulfill unmet medical needs.

We're a different kind of company in that we are one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, but what makes us unique is the fact that we're still family owned. We were founded over 130 years ago by Albert Boehringer, and we strive each day to live up to the high ethical standards he set.

Albert Boehringer set the tone for the company culture that we continue today, which prides itself in supporting employees and our local communities, guided by our values of trust, respect, empathy and passion for the work we do. Our vision is value through innovation. Simply put, this means that we aim to find new ways to improve health and provide value by being innovative. We are committed to the development of innovative, cost-effective medications that, again, fulfill unmet medical needs,

Through our participation in medical and pharmaceutical research for both humans and animals and health system change projects—we have many of those—we have contributed to the significant improvements in health care and have developed innovative and cost-saving medicines.

Our health care system improvement projects are pharmaceutically agnostic—they are unbranded—and the Boehringer family mandates that we have these initiatives that focus on optimizing patient outcomes and improving health—

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