Canadian patients wait two and a half years for new drug access

As a result of government bureaucracies to approve new prescription drugs for public use, Canadians are waiting nearly two-and-a-half years, according to a new report from the Fraser Institute, the leading public policy think-tank in Canada.

The study, titled Access Delayed, Access Denied 2012: Waiting for New Medicines in Canada, points out that, in 2010, the country’s medicines regulator Health Canada took 527 days on average to certify new drugs as safe and effective, while the provinces added another 358 days to approve new drugs for coverage under public drug plans.

“That’s more than 17 months for Health Canada to approve a new medicine for public use, then the provinces take up to another year to make a decision about coverage,” said Mark Rovere, Fraser Institute associate director of health policy research and co-author of the report, adding: “This bureaucratic layering creates unnecessary delays and deprives many Canadians access to new medicines.”