On July 11, 2018, Health Canada released the Therapeutic Products Directorate Statistical Report 2017/2018 providing an overview of its administration of the Patented Medicines (Notice of Compliance) Regulations (PMNOC Regulations) and the data protection regime. The Report includes information regarding trends in listing on the Patent Register and the Register of Innovative Drugs, as well as related court activity. The Report shows a downward trend of new patents added to the Patent Register (606 in 2017/2018 compared to 769 in 2016/2017) along with an increase in the number of rejections (120 in 2017/2018 compared to 74 in 2016/2017), and an increase in new human drugs added to the Register of Innovative Drugs (37 in 2017/2018 compared to 31 in 2016/2017). The number of prohibition applications commenced as a result of notices of allegations served prior to amendments to the PMNOC Regulations coming into force on September 21, 2017, increased from 32 in 2016/2017 to 41 in 2017/2018, and there were 12 actions reported to have been commenced following the implementation of the amended PMNOC Regulations (as of March 31, 2018).
