How to search the Health Canada drug product database (DPD)
Health Canada's Drug Product Database lists drugs authorized in Canada. Search it by brand, company, active ingredient or DIN and read each status.
The Health Canada drug product database (DPD) lists drugs authorized for sale in Canada and is updated nightly. Search the drug product database online query by brand name, company, active ingredient, DIN or ATC code. Records show the product's status, DIN owner and ingredients. Where available, they also link to a human product monograph or a label for an animal drug.
What the drug product database covers
The DPD holds drugs for humans and animals, disinfectants, radiopharmaceuticals and human biological drugs. Health Canada's API guide puts it at approximately 47,000 products that are approved, marketed, dormant or cancelled. So a hit doesn't mean the product is on sale today. Records include product monographs for human drugs and labels for animal drugs.
The DPD only lists authorized drug products, so several product types live elsewhere. Biological drugs for animals are regulated by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, so they are not in the DPD. Natural health products are left out of the DPD listing and Health Canada lists them separately. Medical devices are not in this Health Canada product database. They have their own Medical Devices Active Licence Listing (MDALL). Notices of Compliance appear among Health Canada's other drug databases.
Since April 2, 2024, Health Canada publishes every "approved (but not marketed)" product, and the 6-month posting delay for sunscreens, anti-dandruff shampoos and hard surface disinfectants has ended. The API guide still describes the old delay. Trust the 2024 notice.
How to run a drug product database search
Open the drug product database online query. Health Canada's search tips give three ways in: by DIN, by ATC code, or by one or more other fields. Those fields are status, company, product name, active ingredient(s), Active Ingredient Group (AIG) number, class, route of administration, dosage form and schedule.
The search rules can trip you up. Searches are not case sensitive. A single word matches a full or partial word. Don't use punctuation such as commas, colons, parentheses, brackets or hyphens. Wildcards aren't supported. AND and OR only work in the active ingredient field. A DIN search ignores every other field and returns one record. An ATC search is separate too. It takes 1 to 7 characters, and codes are shown to the 4th level. If you get too many results, the system makes you narrow the search.
Search by product name or company
"Product name" in the DPD means the brand name. Use part of the brand name to find matching products, then compare their strengths and dosage forms. Use the company field when you know the firm name.
Search by active ingredient
Health Canada names ingredients by their INN first, then USAN, Martindale and the Merck Index. Start with the INN rather than the brand name.
Once you find one product, note its AIG number. This 10-digit number groups products with the same active ingredients and strengths. The first 2 digits give the number of active ingredients, the next 5 the ingredient group and the last 3 the strength group. Search on the AIG to find products with that ingredient and strength combination.
Search by DIN
The Drug Identification Number is an eight-digit number Health Canada assigns when it authorizes a product. It ties together the product name, manufacturer, active ingredients and strengths, dosage form and route. Under section C.01.014 of the Food and Drug Regulations, a manufacturer can't sell a drug in dosage form without a DIN that hasn't been cancelled (with exceptions such as veterinary health products, study drugs and medicated feeds).
What the status fields mean
Check the status before treating a search result as a product currently on sale. The definitions below come from Health Canada's terminology page, revised July 4, 2025.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Approved | Active DIN, authorized for sale but not yet marketed in Canada |
| Marketed | Active DIN, currently sold in Canada |
| Dormant | Active DIN, previously marketed, no sales for at least 12 consecutive months |
| Cancelled Post Market | Cancelled after the manufacturer stopped selling the product |
| Cancelled Pre Market | Cancelled before the product was ever marketed |
| Cancelled (Unreturned Annual) | Cancelled because the Annual Notification wasn't provided |
| Cancelled (Safety Issue) | Cancelled under regulatory provisions, e.g. no evidence of safety and effectiveness provided |
| Cancelled (Transitioned to Biocides) | Cancelled after authorization under the Biocides Regulations |
Approved, Marketed and Dormant are all active DINs. Approved doesn't mean the product was ever sold, and Dormant doesn't mean cancelled. The page also defines Restricted Access (sale limited to federal, provincial and territorial governments) and three statuses for COVID-19 interim order products: Authorized by Interim Order, Authorization by Interim Order Revoked and Authorization by Interim Order Expired.
The same July 2025 revision clarified the schedule definitions and updated the categories. Some records may still show a former schedule for a while. Current schedule values include Prescription, Non-prescription (OTC), Ethical, Schedule C (for example radiopharmaceuticals), Schedule D (for example biologics), Schedule G, Narcotic, CDSA I to IV and Targeted (CDSA IV).
Bulk data and the DPD API
For more than a handful of lookups, use the data extracts. They're zip files of UTF-8 text, comma-separated and wrapped in double quotes, in four sets: marketed (no suffix), approved (_ap), cancelled or inactive (_ia) and dormant (_dr). Tables cover companies, products, forms, ingredients, packaging, pharmaceutical standard, routes, schedules, status, therapeutic class, veterinary species and biosimilars. The read-me says all tables join on DRUG_CODE. Company contact details are left out.
The read-me file has one trap. The status table keeps full history, so filter on CURRENT_STATUS_FLAG = Y to get the current status. Products entered before September 1996 may carry a placeholder history date.
The free DPD API at health-products.canada.ca/api/drug/ has endpoints for drug products, active ingredients, companies, status, schedules, routes, forms, packaging, therapeutic class and veterinary species. It returns JSON by default, or XML if you set type=xml. Set lang to en or fr. The brandname and ingredientname parameters match anywhere in the name. Since May 1, 2025, packaging details use the product_information field, and UPC data has been removed. Check older scripts against the current field definitions.
Health Canada doesn't give medical advice through the DPD, and for where a product is sold, it points you to the company.
RegAffairs AI has a cited answer on the Drug Product Database that covers searching by ingredient and reading each status.