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

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.

Scroll to Top

During the Canada Post strike announced September 25, 2025, the following measures will be undertaken to minimize service disruption to BC-CfE clients and providers.

  • The BC-CfE Laboratory has transitioned to private courier for delivery of outgoing reports and documents. Results required urgently can be faxed upon request. (Lab Contact Information: Phone 604-806-8775; FAX 604-806-9463)
  • The BC-CfE Drug Treatment Program (DTP) will fax outgoing forms and documents to the provider’s office. (DTP Contact Information: Phone 604-806-8515; FAX 604-806-9044)
  • St. Paul’s Hospital Ambulatory Pharmacy has transitioned to private courier for delivery of medications. We recommend requesting medication at least 2 weeks in advance in case of delivery delays, particularly to rural/remote parts of BC. (Contact Information: Phone 1-800-547-3622; FAX 604-806-8675)

During the Canada Post strike, we recommend that documents be faxed or couriered to our sites, versus utilization of regular mail service

The BC-CfE Laboratory is streamlining reporting processes for certain tests in order to simplify distribution and record-keeping, and to ensure completeness of results. Beginning September 2, 2025, results for the ‘Resistance Analysis of HIV-1 Protease and Reverse Transcriptase’ (Protease-RT) and ‘HIV-1 Integrase Resistance Genotype’ tests will be combined into a single ‘HIV-1 Resistance Genotype Report’.
For more details and example reports, please click on the button below