B.C. residents at risk of contracting HIV turn to online buyer's club to afford pricey lifesaving drug

published on June 9, 2017 by Scott Hibbard, in CBC News

Website helps those at risk import cheaper generic version of drug that prevents HIV

B.C. residents at risk of contracting HIV. are turning to an online buyer's club to help them afford an anti-HIV drug that costs $1,000 a month and isn't covered by the provincial drug plan.

"It's ridiculous we have to go to these lengths," said Matt Appleton, 33. "It's a workaround."

For more than a decade, the antiretroviral medication Truvada has been used to treat people living with HIV, but in recent years, it's also been prescribed as a pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), proven to reduce the risk of acquiring the virus by over 90 percent.

Last year, Health Canada approved the use of Truvada as a PrEP but for many of those considered at risk, the cost of using the drug as preventative medicine is simply too high.

So far, Quebec has the only provincial drug plan that pays for it, so some B.C. residents not covered by private insurance are now sourcing it for as low as $65-a-month thanks to guidance from The Davie Buyers Club.

How it started

The Davie Buyers Club was named after The Dallas Buyers Club, an Oscar-nominated film about the real-life story of an AIDS patient in the 80s who smuggled unapproved pharmaceuticals from Mexico into Texas to treat his symptoms.

The website was started last year by a Vancouver health-care worker who says he felt "moral distress" diagnosing men with HIV, knowing there was medication that could have prevented their infection.

"To hold a stranger in my arms in my office as he cries because I've diagnosed him with HIV … that is a heavy experience," said the site's creator whose identity CBC News has agreed not to disclose at his request.

"When you know the situation for that person is preventable, you want to do what you can."

He says he was inspired by similar programs designed to help users access the generic version of the drug in the U.K. and Australia, so he launched the site last June, and it has since had over 4,000 visitors.

Dr. Mark Hull at St. Paul's Immunodeficiency Clinic says data suggests roughly 100 people of the 300 to 500 in B.C. using PrEP, are using the site to source generics, although there's no formal tracking underway.

"It shows you there's a lot of demand but not much in the way of access," he said.

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Treatment as Prevention®

Mark Hull

Julio Montaner

BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

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B.C. residents at risk of contracting HIV turn to online buyer's club to afford pricey lifesaving drug

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