Amendments to the Human Pathogens and Toxins Act
The Human Pathogens and Toxins Act (HPTA) has been updated!
Effective March 26, 2026
These changes respond to a rapidly evolving threat landscape and significant investments in the biomanufacturing and life sciences sector in Canada.
What’s new?
- Canadian Residency requirements for licence applicants, holders, licence holder representatives and Biological Safety Officers.
- Transportation (including import) and export licence requirements for certain high-risk human pathogens for persons who also conduct other controlled activities.
- The Registry of Human Pathogens and Toxins replaces the outdated Schedules 1-4 of the previous HPTA, giving you easy access to the most up-to-date information.
- Notifications of incidents threshold lowered from <reasonable grounds to believe> to <reasonable grounds to suspect> to improve reporting.
- Maintaining a list of all persons who have remote access to a licenced facility.
- Increased penalties for certain offences to align with current legislation.
- Updated inspector powers for clarity and efficiency.
- New and revised definitions for: controlled activity, document, foreign entity, and toxin.
- Minor language and clarification updates.
For existing regulated parties, grace periods are in place to allow time to comply with the new Canadian residency and transport/export licence requirements.
Webinar Recording
Join our webinar to learn more about the updated Human Pathogens and Toxins Act (HPTA) and how it affects licenced facilities and personnel.
View the Recording NowExplore the resources below for more information about the changes. Click here to see the full catalogue of biosafety and biosecurity resources.