Health Canada has approved Adapt Pharma’s Narcan naloxone nasal spray for reversal of known or suspected opioid overdose. The approval comes three months after Health Canada announced that it would allow importation of Narcan nasal spray from the US, an order than remains in effect. Adapt says that it is working out distribution arrangements and will announce availability of the Canadian product “in the near future.”
Health Minister Jane Philpott commented, “”Canada is facing a growing number of opioid overdoses and deaths occurring across the country. This crisis demands that we take action now, and I’m proud to see my department working with its neighbours in the United States, and expediting approvals here in Canada, to provide Canadians with much-needed treatment options.”
Adapt Pharma Chairman and CEO Seamus Mulligan said, “Adapt Pharma has cooperated with Health Canada throughout the approval process to expedite the approval of the naloxone nasal spray in Canada. It is our priority to equip first responders, including the general public, with the ability to potentially treat an opioid overdose, wherever it happens.”
The FDA approved Narcan nasal spray in November 2015, and Adapt submitted its NDS to Health Canada in May 2016.
Read the Adapt Pharma press release.
Read the Health Canada press release.
