This paper explores the issue of underinvestment in Research & Development (R&D) in Canada, particularly in the pharmaceutical R&D field. Its core objectives are to outline the historical context, the opportunities and provide a comparative analysis between Canada’s public policies in the field against two leading countries: the United States and Denmark. This paper finds that Canada is the only member country of the G7 with a R&D to GDP percentage that has fallen over the last two decades and the lowest among the three comparator countries. Additionally, this paper dives into Canada’s regulatory process which has the longest average review time in years and features a stricter process compared to the US and Denmark. This points to a generally uncompetitive space in Canada to attract higher R&D investment which has resulted in lower wages for researchers and low private sector investment for pharmaceutical R&D. Finally, this paper states that there are several multi-pronged policy approaches that Canada can improve on to stimulate pharmaceutical R&D regain its place as a leading name globally.