{"id":819606,"date":"2026-07-22T23:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T23:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/819606\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T23:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T23:17:08","slug":"health-canada-moves-to-speed-approvals-for-drugs-and-medical-devices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/819606\/","title":{"rendered":"Health Canada moves to speed approvals for drugs and medical devices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Health Canada says it is taking steps to speed up access to new drugs and medical devices while maintaining the country&#8217;s standards for safety, effectiveness and quality.<\/p>\n<p>The federal department announced it has approved 537 new drugs and medical devices over the past three months and is introducing new measures aimed at streamlining the approval process for some treatments.<\/p>\n<p>Among the approvals were three generic versions of semaglutide, making Canada the first G7 country to authorize generic versions of the medication.<\/p>\n<p>Faster reviews through international cooperation<\/p>\n<p>Health Canada has published a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.canada.ca\/en\/health-canada\/services\/drugs-health-products\/ministerial-reliance-order.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ministerial Reliance Order<\/a> that will allow regulators to rely on certain decisions and scientific documents produced by select foreign regulatory agencies when reviewing some drug submissions.<\/p>\n<p>The department said the approach will reduce duplication while maintaining Canada&#8217;s regulatory standards.<\/p>\n<p>Initially, the streamlined process will apply to drugs intended for children and veterinary medicines.<\/p>\n<p>Health Minister Marjorie Michel said Canadians expect timely access to safe and effective treatments without unnecessary delays.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Health Canada is modernizing how it reviews products for market authorization in Canada and reducing duplication,&#8221; Michel said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Related Stories:<\/p>\n<p>Domestic manufacturing consultation launched<\/p>\n<p>Health Canada is also consulting on a proposal to prioritize reviews of certain generic drug submissions involving Canadian manufacturing.<\/p>\n<p>The department said strengthening Canada&#8217;s generic pharmaceutical sector could improve the security of the country&#8217;s drug supply and help prevent shortages.<\/p>\n<p>Public consultations on both the Ministerial Reliance Order guidance and the proposed prioritization process will run from July 15 to Sept. 12.<\/p>\n<p>More than 500 approvals this spring<\/p>\n<p>Between April 1 and June 30, Health Canada <a href=\"https:\/\/www.canada.ca\/en\/health-canada\/news\/2026\/07\/drugs-and-medical-devices-authorized-april-1-to-june-30-2026.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">authorized 537 new drugs<\/a> and medical devices.<\/p>\n<p>The department said the regulatory changes are intended to make Canada&#8217;s approval system more efficient while encouraging manufacturers to introduce new medicines and treatments to the Canadian market sooner.<\/p>\n<p>Health Canada said the initiatives complement ongoing research supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, which helps generate evidence needed to assess new drugs, medical devices and other health products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Health Canada says it is taking steps to speed up access to new drugs and medical devices while&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":819607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44],"class_list":["post-819606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=819606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}