New startup MaaTRx offers early warning system for drug shortages

By Eva Schaessens

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 Institute of Health Emergencies and Pandemics (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.

In practice, MaaTRx acts like an early warning and coordination 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 down 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.

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,” said Tadrous.

Chaudhry, a University of Toronto alum and former graduate student at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, pointed to the importance of early, shared insight in strengthening system preparedness. “Health system preparedness depends on information as much as it depends on inventory,” she said. “Earlier, shared visibility transforms crises into a manageable challenge, giving leaders the time to act before patients feel the impact.” She added that building “collective intelligence into health systems today helps us prepare for the challenges of tomorrow.”

Drug shortages can intensify the pressures facing health systems during emergencies and prolonged disruptions. The team sees MaaTRx as a way to strengthen overall preparedness by offering earlier signals, clearer intelligence and more coordinated action pathways. In a system where disruptions can escalate quickly, proactive data and shared visibility are becoming critical to maintaining continuity of care and supporting broader emergency readiness.