On July 24, 2026, the Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Sector Task Force (the “Task Force”) published its final report to the Ministers of Health and Industry pursuant to a mandate to (i) explore innovative, made-in-Canada solutions that enhance the competitiveness and long-term growth of the life sciences sector and (ii) support reliable and sustainable access to pharmaceutical products in Canada. As previously reported, the Task Force is a joint federal initiative led by Health Canada and Innovation, Science and Economic Development of Canada, and includes representatives from various stakeholder groups.
The report examines the structural challenges and highlights the urgency of issues in key areas including access to and affordability of medications, security of supply, modernization of regulatory and decision-making processes, and the advancement of translational research, innovation and commercialization across the life sciences ecosystem.
Key findings
The Task Force observes that Canada’s path to reimbursement is complex, lengthy and slower than that of other G7 countries, and that its pricing policies may devalue innovative medicines. While acknowledging recent initiatives to accelerate access to innovative medicines (see for example our previous article), the report identifies the post-authorization phase as a key source of delay, as reflected by the following timeline across the access pathways:
- Health technology assessment through Canada’s Drug Agency (“CDA-AMC”) (and the Institut national d’excellence en santé et en services sociaux in Quebec) takes on average 200 days, although recent improvements have been observed.
- The pan-Canadian price negotiations take approximately 195 days on average, with additional time often required before negotiations formally commence.
- Individual provinces and territories make independent formulary listing decisions, which can take an additional 99 to 219 days.
The Task Force also finds that Canada’s clinical trial environment is underperforming, and that the path for translating its life sciences discoveries into venture-backed companies is sub-optimal. While Canada performs well in creating and maturing venture capital-backed innovative companies, challenges persist in retaining Canadian ownership and scaling them to commercial-stage domestic anchor companies. In addition, Canada lacks a unified health and life sciences data ecosystem to enable the use of artificial intelligence and real-world evidence generation.
The collective impact of the above challenges, according to the report, is a progressive erosion of domestic and foreign direct investment in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry that is weakening Canada’s health sovereignty.
Recommendations
The Task Force calls for urgent, coordinated action by the Government of Canada and makes a set of recommendations that address the following objectives:
- improving Canada’s regulatory and procurement efficiency by adopting streamlined processes by Health Canada, including expansion and acceleration of adoption of the proposed reliance framework on trusted foreign regulators for innovative medicines (see our article on the Ministerial Reliance Order) and enabling rolling and flexible regulatory reviews (recommendation areas 1 to 7);
- improving the assessment of innovation value, market access and reimbursement conditions through recommended reforms for CDA-AMC, the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance and the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (recommendation areas 8 to 11);
- enhancing the global competitiveness of Canada’s clinical trial infrastructure and networks, including promoting Health Canada’s 30-day Clinical Trial Application review timeline (recommendation areas 12 to 17);
- developing nation-wide health data infrastructure (recommendation areas 18 to 21);
- strengthening translational research (recommendation areas 22 to 27);
- attracting domestic sources of late-stage capital to foster the emergence of Canadian commercial-stage life sciences anchor companies (recommendation areas 28 to 32); and
- improving Canada’s health sovereignty and industrial strategy (recommendation areas 33 to 38).
In addition, the Task Force recommends that the Government of Canada ensure timely execution of the recommendations by creating dedicated implementation teams and following recommended implementation timelines (recommendation area 39).
Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact a member of the Life Sciences Regulatory & Compliance Group or the Pharmaceutical Litigation Group.
The preceding is intended as a timely update on Canadian intellectual property and life sciences regulatory law. The content is informational only and does not constitute legal or professional advice. To obtain such advice, please communicate with our offices directly.