What you need to know about the Special Access Program
Health Canada’s Special Access Program (SAP) considers requests from doctors for access to drugs unavailable in Canada to treat patients with serious or life-threatening conditions on a compassionate or emergency basis when conventional therapies fail, are unsuitable or unavailable.
Through SAP, your doctor may be able to access experimental drugs not yet approved by Health Canada and still in clinical trials, and other non-marketed drugs. These drugs must treat, diagnose or prevent a serious or life-threatening condition. The physician must have tried other alternatives unsuccessfully, and sufficient evidence of the drug’s safety and efficacy must support its use.