On July 6, 2011, we received a letter from Health Canada (dated June 17, 2011) explaining the results of its May 10 inspection of the Vancouver pharmacy that will be used to store and label the MDMA capsules for our upcoming Canadian study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for subjects with chronic, treatment-resistant PTSD. In the letter, Health Canada requested additional information about the site and about how we proposed to transfer the MDMA from the pharmacy to the treatment facility.
Canadian regulations require that the facility used to store and label the MDMA to be used in the study is adequately secure, and that the proper accountability procedures are in place. The information requested by Health Canada included clarifications about the address of the pharmacy, the security measures available at the site, the method of transportation of the MDMA between the pharmacy and the research site, and the format of the labels to be used on the capsules. Health Canada also requires that we include an alarm system at the site. We anticipate that it will be relatively easy to address these issues. Once we do, our final hurdle is to obtain the license to import the MDMA for the study into Canada from Switzerland (where another MAPS MDMA/PTSD study was recently completed).