Thank you very much for your question.
Drugs that are not authorized for sale, which means those that have not had the issuance of a notice of compliance, can be made available to veterinarians for use through two processes. One is the emergency drug release process, and the other is the investigational new drug submission process. So the emergency drug release process allows for the use of these products that are not authorized, because they are not on the market and there is a therapeutic need to use them in animal care.
For example, some of the aquaculture drugs come through the emergency drug release program. They are not authorized through that program without a review and an evaluation, so some element of review and evaluation occurs. We set up maximum residue limits for those products if they are used in food-producing animals, and there are withdrawal times. That is one process by which drugs that are not authorized for sale in Canada can be used appropriately and very prudently for animals.
The other process is the investigational new drug submission. That is the process I talked about earlier, where we are encouraging industry to come in with these types of trials. It's a controlled study that will collect both safety and efficacy data about a drug. This information is useful when they file their new drug submissions so they can get approval for these products. So there are mechanisms by which these unauthorized products can be made available in Canada if there is a need.