Regulatory Cooperation in an emergency

Canada's many opportunities to consult on regulatory cooperation over the years were foundational to support Health Canada's rapid and effective pandemic response.

These consultations to review the full regulatory stock and address specific irritants to regulatory cooperation that limit trade, innovation and competition served as a well-researched menu of meaningful, stakeholder-supported options for Health Canada to draw upon during this emergency. Regulatory cooperation concepts were implemented as temporary regulatory measures to speed market access for both existing and new health products in the face of the pandemic. For example, recognizing foreign decisions, inspections and testing helped increase imports to help the industry adapt to supply chain disruptions while meeting unprecedented consumer demand. The global nature of this new challenge deepened our international collaboration by necessity to mirror and adapt regulatory requirements to the global nature of health product research and development. Clinical trials are executed globally and the pandemic has not only forced global alignment in the evolution of the regulatory requirements and processes, but has also deepened collaboration to the point of work sharing amongst regulators.

Collectively, the lessons learned from the pandemic response combined with an existing commitment to regulatory cooperation and alignment will be fundamental to support ongoing economic recovery, innovation and growth.