Companies will be required to post drug shortages, Health Minister says

Pharmaceutical companies will be required to post drug shortages on a new website or risk being named and shamed, federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose says.

Ambrose said Tuesday that the site will include letters to companies that have not publicly posted anticipated and actual drug shortages.

Any company that fails to meet the mandatory requirement will be fined.

Ambrose said that so far companies have volunteered to post shortages, but one firm recently failed to notify the public when it was running out of a cancer drug.

Health Canada has also sent letters to pharmaceutical companies for not providing timely notifications of shortages of nitroglycerin, which is used to treat a heart condition, the minister said.

Ambrose said Canadians and their doctors need to be informed when the drugs they need are not available in the midst of what is a global problem.