Nature of operations - Additional Information (Detail)	3 Months Ended
Mar. 31, 2016
Aquinox Pharmaceuticals (USA) Inc. [Member]
Entity Information [Line Items]
Date of incorporation	May 31, 2007
Aquinox Pharmaceuticals (Canada) Inc. [Member]
Entity Information [Line Items]
Date of incorporation	Dec. 26, 2003

Line items represent financial concepts included in a table. These concepts are used to disclose reportable information associated with domain members defined in one or many axes to the table.

No definition available.

Name:	dei_EntityInformationLineItems
Namespace Prefix:	dei_
Data Type:	xbrli:stringItemType
Balance Type:	na
Period Type:	duration