A Vancouver Patient Pays About $90,000 a Month for a Cancer Drug Not Approved in Canada
James Howard, in Vancouver, takes three doses a day of daraxonrasib, a new pancreatic cancer drug that is not approved in Canada; he gets it from the U.S. at a cost of about $90,000 Cdn a month.
CBC reports that in the U.S., the government is barred from negotiating with drugmakers when they launch most new drugs — a rule eased slightly by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act — leaving manufacturers to set their own price.
Wong called it “particularly galling” that Revolution Medicines set such a high benchmark price based on its clinical-trial results rather than what he considers a price that would support patient access.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
The U.S. rule is the quiet architecture here: for most new drugs, the government is barred from negotiating at launch, and manufacturers set their own price. That is a policy choice, not a law of nature.
Wong’s objection is narrower than “drugs cost too much”: it is that the benchmark price is set from clinical-trial results rather than from a price that would support access. That distinction matters — a price can reflect trial results and still be a poor fit for access.