Okay.
Our government recognizes that Canadians want to be able to choose from a wide range of safe and effective natural health products, so we have introduced a new approach for NHPs, which enables more efficient processing of applications to increase consumer access to safe and effective products.
Review times for applications are now based on how much we know about each product, relying on the library of information collected from the licensing of over 60,000 natural health products. NHPs about which we know the most are reviewed in a shorter period of time than are those we don't know much about or those that are more complex. So the administrative burden for bringing lower-risk products to the market is reduced. Our target is now to have these applications reviewed in 30 days or less, with the majority of them being done in 10 days.
That means that our efforts can now be focused on the lesser known or more complex products. The target in that area is to have those reviews completed in 180 days or less. Ultimately the improvements have provided a stable and predictable approach to the industry, and these changes are having a very positive impact. The new approach played a key role in eliminating the backlog of over 10,000 NHPs, so we are making huge progress in processing those NHP applications in Health Canada.
Thank you.