June 2026 Recap 🐞 HDW Bulletin
Good news for those hoping for better transparency around drug reimbursement in Canada!
Earlier this year, Canada's Drug Agency (CDA-AMC) made it easier to understand how their review process works. The latest reporting covers yearly statistics from 2020-2024 including:
- numbers of submissions reviewed
- review timelines
- types of recommendations issued
- breakdowns by drug type and submission timing
CDA-AMC (formerly CADTH) reviews scientific evidence — plus patient and clinician perspectives — about how drugs are expected to perform in terms of benefits, risks, and costs. This is different from Health Canada or the US FDA, which decide whether drugs are safe and effective enough to be put on the market.
Governments (federal, provincial, territorial, but not Quebec) use CDA-AMC "reimbursement reviews" to help decide whether public insurance plans will cover specific drugs, but they are not actually required to follow the recommendations. Drug pricing negotiations and private insurance coverage can also be influenced by these reviews.
Increased transparency at the agency is coming after years of policy change, including the 2023 decision to no longer routinely redact clinical data in published reports, which was announced jointly with US (ICER) and UK (NICE) counterparts.
The work of CDA-AMC has impact — but it often takes a backseat in news coverage and public debate, perhaps because of its evolving and indirect role in the Canadian healthcare system. Will that change as more information about their process is shared with Canadians?
New numbers 📊
Health & Disease
- Infectious Disease — Jun-30/26: PHAC Mosquito-borne disease surveillance, updated weekly for transmission season [Data exploration tool]
- Substance Use — Jun-26/26: Health Canada Supervised consumption sites [Data exploration tool]
- Infectious Disease — Jun-26/26: PHAC Mpox (monkeypox) epidemiology update [Report, Datasets]
- Infectious Disease — Jun-25/26: PHAC Mpox immunization coverage survey [Interactive report]
- Infectious Disease — Jun-25/26: PHAC Key Adult Populations Immunization Coverage Survey (KAPICS) [Interactive report]
- Substance Use — Jun-15/26: PHAC Opioid- and stimulant-related harms in Canada, 2016 to 2025 [Report]
- Substance Use — Jun-15/26: Health Canada Key findings from the Canadian Substance Use Survey (CSUS) [Report]
- Substance Use — Jun-15/26: Health Canada Drug and alcohol use in Canada, ages 15+, from the CSUS [Data exploration tool]
- Substance Use — Jun-15/26: PHAC Benzodiazepines in apparent drug toxicity deaths in Canada, 2018 to 2024 [Report]
- Environmental Exposures — Jun-10/26: Health Canada Levels of environmental chemicals in the Canadian population from the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS) [Data exploration tool]
- Perinatal Health — Jun-9/26: PHAC Folic acid use and neural tube defects [Report]
- Substance Use — Jun-2/26: PHAC Stigma and discrimination experienced by people who inject drugs [Report]
- Infectious Disease — Jun-2/26: PHAC Enhanced Surveillance of Antimicrobial-Resistant Gonorrhea System (ESAG) [Data exploration tool]
- Infectious Disease — Jun-1/26: PHAC Sexually transmitted and blood-borne infection surveillance (chlamydia, gonorrhea, hepatitis B) [Data exploration tool]
Vital Statistics
- Population — Jun-17/26: StatCan Population estimates, quarterly [Data exploration tool]
- Demographics — Jun-17/26: StatCan Demographic estimates, provinces and territories [Data exploration tool]
- Migration — Jun-17/26: StatCan International migration components, provinces and territories [Data exploration tool]
- Migration — Jun-17/26: StatCan Estimates of the number of non-permanent residents by type, provinces and territories [Data exploration tool]
Health Services & Benefits
- Jun-25/26: CIHI Wait Times for Priority Procedures in Canada, 2008 to 2025 — Data Tables [Dataset · XLSX]
- Jun-25/26: CIHI Emergency department wait times in Canada: Insights from a health system perspective [Report]
- Jun-25/26: CIHI Wait times in Canada, 2026 [Report]
- Jun-4/26: CIHI Organ transplants, wait-lists and donors [Report, Datasets]
Health Workforce
- Jun-25/26: CIHI Health Workforce in Canada, 2024 — Quick Stats [Dataset · XLSX]
Consumer Safety & Biosecurity
- Jun-9/26: Health Canada Surveillance summaries for the Consumer Product Safety Program [Data exploration tool]
- Jun-8/26: PHAC Biosafety and biosecurity inspection summaries for organizations working with human pathogens and toxins [Datasets]