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The Policy on Changes in Manufacturer’s name and/or Product Name (CMPN) applies to drug submissions to Health Canada where the manufacturer's and/or product’s name is being changed due to a merger, corporate restructuring, licensing agreement, or a buy-out. According to this Health Canada Policy, a licensing agreement is defined as “an agreement between two firms whereby one firm supplies a drug product to another firm for sale under the second firm’s name”.

On October 30th, 2016, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk signed the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) during the European Union-Canada Leaders’ Summit in Brussels, Belgium.

On March 14, 2017, Health Canada published a notice outlining upcoming changes to the Annual Drug Notification Form.

Canada may not be top of the list of countries that companies target for first registration of their product (although it may be for orphan drugs – however, that’s a subject for another day!), but it’s usually in the next tier after USA and Europe, since typically Canada represents about 10% of the market size of the USA.

On April 7th, 2017, Health Canada released the Intellectual Property Hold for Notifiable Change Submissions notice. This notice is geared towards subsequent entry manufacturers and sponsors as per the Patented Medicines (Notice of Compliance) Regulations and the Food and Drug Regulations.

In the last 10 years, biosimilar regulatory guidelines have evolved significantly in Canada, the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (U.S.). Anchored on the patent expiration date, there is a wave of biosimilars development in Western countries as well as other countries – all demanding cheaper versions of biologic medicines for their citizens.

A few years ago on June 13th, 2015, the Plain Language Labelling Regulations became effective for prescription drugs in Canada.

Health Canada has commenced consultations on proposed changes to the Food and Drug Regulations and Medical Devices Regulations that would require mandatory reporting of serious adverse drug reactions and medical device incidents by health care institutions.

Privacy legislation in Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere, while imposing detailed requirements on issues such as consent, often reverts to high level principles in outlining privacy safeguards or security obligations.

On January 2017, the International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH) released a reflection paper titled Good Clinical Practice Renovation: Modernization of ICH E8 and Subsequent Renovation of ICH E6. The reflection paper discusses current issues with the ICH guidelines regarding clinical trial design and conduct, and the need to update the guidelines to reflect current concerns.

Canada's Food and Drug Regulations (FDR) were amended to extend the requirements of Division 1A - Establishment Licensing and Division 2 - Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) to active ingredients used in pharmaceutical drugs for human use only.

With the evolution of healthcare products and its regulations, today we will recap one of the most significant recent changes in Canadian regulations; Vanessa’s Law.