Madam Chair, there are probably two things I'd like to say about that. One would be related to the common drug review again. When it was established, every province and the federal programs that deliver health care had their own systems in place. Over the 10 years or so that the common drug review has been in place, there have been some independent analyses that have actually shown that we've reduced that duplication and we've actually allowed quicker access to some of these innovative technologies. That's been a great advancement on the drug side.
One of the recommendations that came out of the review done by this committee in 2007 was about priority reviews and about how we could maybe streamline the process for some of these new breakthrough or first-in-class drugs. We did have some very good discussions with our colleagues at Health Canada about how we could perhaps streamline that.
The typical process is that Health Canada does their risk-benefit review, and when they give market authorization, then the manufacturer makes a submission to us. We wouldn't do our work until that market authorization was given.
For these priority review drugs that my colleague mentioned, we now start our process anywhere from two to three months prior to market authorization. There is a type of pre-notice of compliance program. Initially we put some criteria on that. The drug had to demonstrate significant benefits or safety issues, or it had to create the opportunity for some significant cost savings to the provinces. We've just decided that we'd like to remove those criteria and leave it totally open to the manufacturer to make that submission. If they'd like us to start our review in parallel with the review at Health Canada, not exactly when they start but somewhere in the process, that's their choice. That's been very helpful to us and very beneficial to the sponsors as well.