Recommendations and Status of Drug Submissions

The Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH) and the drug plans that participate in the Common Drug Review (CDR) are committed to a fair, objective, and transparent review process.

As part of that commitment, CADTH provides reports on the status of drug reviews as they move through the CDR process. CADTH also publicly releases the recommendations made by the Canadian Drug Expert Committee (CDEC) to the participating drug plans.

Drug submission status reports are usually posted on the CADTH website every Friday, reflecting activity to Thursday noon.

You can access the submission status reports and recommendations by searching the CDR Drug Database.

The criteria CDEC considers in making recommendations include:

• clinical studies demonstrating the safety, efficacy, and effectiveness of the drug compared to alternatives
• therapeutic advantages and disadvantages relative to current accepted therapy
• cost-effectiveness relative to current accepted therapy
• patient and public impact.

CDEC may recommend that a drug be listed, a drug be listed with criteria or conditions, a drug not be listed, or a recommendation may be deferred pending clarification of information.