VANCOUVER — Canada’s health minister says companies will be required to post drug shortages on a new website or risk being named and shamed.
Rona Ambrose says 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 says 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.
The minister says 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.
Ambrose says 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.