An early-warning tool developed by researchers at the University of Toronto helps predict and manage drug shortages by giving Canadian health leaders more visibility into the risks before it's too late.
The MaaTRx platform uses real‑time data and AI‑enabled forecasting to identify medications that may be vulnerable to supply disruptions, helping hospitals, policy-makers and pharmacy networks make earlier, evidence-informed decisions about inventory and substitutions.
It was developed by Mina Tadrous, an associate professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and a member of the Institute of Health Emergencies and Pandemics (IHEP), a U of T institutional strategic initiative , and Shanzeh Chaudhry, a pharmacy alumna who is MaaTRx's operations lead.
"Health system preparedness depends on information as much as it depends on inventory," Chaudhry says. "Earlier, shared visibility transforms crises into a manageable challenge, giving leaders the time to act before patients feel the impact."
Drug shortages have become a steady pressure point in Canada's health system, affecting everything from routine hospital operations to national preparedness planning. Shortages can also intensify the pressures facing health systems during emergencies and prolonged disruptions.
MaaTRx addresses these issues by bringing together predictive modelling, regional insights, AI-guided response tools and inventory-matching features in a single platform, acting as both an early warning and co-ordination hub for drug shortages. Instead of teams scrambling once a medication disappears from shelves, the platform helps flag risks earlier, identify safe alternatives and connect organizations that can help each other respond.
A hospital pharmacist, for example, can quickly see when a critical drug may be at risk, receive real‑time updates and access guidance on clinically appropriate substitutions, cutting days of manual research to hours and supporting faster, safer decision-making for patient care. At the same time, procurement and system‑level teams can see patterns across regions and portfolios, helping them anticipate disruptions, plan contracts more strategically and reduce last‑minute decision‑making during crises.
The concept initially grew out of research at IHEP, based at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, that examined how drug shortages unfold and how they affect patients' medication use. For example, a project by trainee Araniy Santhireswaran - co‑supervised by Tadrous and Étienne Gaudette, an assistant professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation - analyzed how drug shortages shape drug use and where evidence gaps limit preparedness. Insights from the project, funded by a 2024 IHEP Graduate Studentship Award , helped inform the design of MaaTRx, ensuring its signals are clinically meaningful, transparent and useful in real‑world decision‑making.
The work builds on further IHEP‑supported research led by Tadrous that helped inform Health Canada's development of Canada's National Critical Drug List , with U of T formally recognized among the contributing sources.
For Tadrous and Chaudhry, MaaTRx reflects the kind of practical innovation that emerges when research insight meets system need. "Seeing our research go from idea to practice and working to scale it has been an exciting process," says Tadrous.
Chaudhry adds that building "collective intelligence into health systems today helps us prepare for the challenges of tomorrow."
