New startup MaaTRx offers early warning system for drug shortages

Drug shortages have become a steady pressure point in Canada’s health system, affecting everything from routine hospital operations to national preparedness planning. A new University of Toronto platform, MaaTRx, aims to help predict and manage drug shortages by giving health leaders a clearer view of these risks before they escalate.

MaaTRx was developed by Mina Tadrous, associate professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and an IHEP member, together with co‑lead Shanzeh Chaudhry, alum of the Faculty who now plays a leading role in advancing the platform. The platform uses real‑time data and AI‑enabled forecasting to surface medications that may be vulnerable to supply disruptions, helping hospitals, policymakers and pharmacy networks make earlier, evidence-informed decisions about inventory and substitutions.

The concept initially grew out of research at IHEP, which is based at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, examining how shortages unfold and how they affect medication use at the patient level. A 2024 IHEP Graduate Studentship project by trainee Araniy Santhireswaran, co‑supervised by Tadrous and Étienne Gaudette (Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation), analyzed how drug shortages shape drug use and where evidence gaps limit preparedness. These insights helped inform the design of MaaTRx, ensuring its signals are clinically meaningful, transparent, and useful in real‑world decision‑making. That 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 the University of Toronto formally recognized among the contributing sources.

Building on this foundation, MaaTRx brings together predictive modelling, regional insights, AI-guided response tools and inventory-matching features in a single platform. This reduces the need for organizations to develop complex in-house systems.

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