Madam Speaker, I am pleased to reply on behalf of the Minister of Health to the question from the hon. member for New Brunswick Southwest concerning the process for approving drugs, specifically Rituxan.
Drugs are authorized for sale in Canada once they have successfully gone through the drug review process. This process is the means by which a drug application is reviewed by scientists in the therapeutic products program of Health Canada to assess the safety, efficacy and quality of a drug.
Throughout the process the safety and well-being of Canadians is the paramount concern. Health Canada strives to make significant therapeutic advances available to Canadians as quickly as possible consistent with public safety.
Health Canada's objective is to be competitive internationally with respect to drug review and approval and, during the past five years, it has cut in half the time needed to review the average presentation.
Health Canada has been and continues to be committed to ensuring the greatest efficiencies in the drug review process. To do this, the therapeutic product program in consultation with stakeholders is pursuing several initiatives to further streamline the process.
Rituxan is a new drug for the treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. So far, it has not been approved in Canada, but patients can obtain it through the special access program. Practitioners sometimes resort to drugs not approved in Canada for the treatment of serious or life-threatening illnesses, when conventional treatments have been unsuccessful or are not appropriate.
In such situations the therapeutic products program of Health Canada has a mandate to authorize the sale of these drugs to practitioners. This mandate is administered by the special access program of the TPP. This special program is—