B.C. to buy U.S. nasal naloxone as Vancouver company says it can make a cheaper option<\/p>\n
Published 5:00 pm Thursday, February 19, 2026<\/p>\n
B.C. is investing $18 million to buy tens of thousands of take-home nasal spray naloxone kits for distribution at 2,400 locations starting in April.<\/p>\n
Tracy Thompson, the South Island harm reduction coordinator for Island Health, said that more and more people are requesting the nasal version of the anti-opioid overdose drug as opposed to the more common injectable version.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese requests are not just about convenience,\u201d Thompson said at a Thursday (Feb. 19) press conference in Victoria. \u201cThey are coming from people who want to help, but are feeling nervous about responding for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The province first introduced the nasal spray kind of naloxone in 2024, buying 60,000 kits. This expansion means about half the 400,000 naloxone kits provided by the province for free each year will be the nasal spray type.<\/p>\n
Health Canada has approved two companies\u2019 versions of nasal naloxone, Teva Pharmaceuticals and Emergent BioSolutions. Both of these companies are based in the United States.<\/p>\n
The products generally sell commercially for more than $50 per two-pack.<\/p>\n
But a representative of the Vancouver-based Fair Price Pharma says his company can produce the nasal spray for less than half that cost \u2014 if it could just get the several million dollars of seed money needed to conduct the required clinical trials.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat they\u2019re charging for the U.S. product, that price doesn\u2019t reflect the cost,\u201d said Dr. Martin Schechter, who is part of Fair Price Pharma\u2019s leadership team and who was the founding director of the University of British Columbia\u2019s School of Population and Public Health. \u201cWe can produce a nasal naloxone for $10 a dose.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schechter says that Fair Price has designed the product and has the manufacturing capability lined up, it just needs the money to pay for clinical trials to prove its version of the spray does what it is supposed to. The company has tried to obtain federal funding, to no avail.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we were provided with those funds, we could develop the product, get it licensed, and it\u2019d be available to the government and the public health system,\u201d Schechter said.<\/p>\n
Schechter says that Fair Price, based on East Hastings Street in Vancouver, is also trying to get the approval to produce diacetylmorphine, an opioid-based treatment and alternative to methadone and Suboxone. This treatment is used in some parts of Europe for patients who do not respond to less potent treatments.<\/p>\n
The B.C. Green Caucus applauded the government\u2019s decision to buy new nasal naloxone kits, but West Vancouver-Sea to Sky MLA Jeremy Valeriote also called for more investment in domestic production capabilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this government truly wants to save lives, it must support domestic pharmaceutical production and expand regulated alternatives to replace the toxic illicit drugs that are killing British Columbians every day,\u201d Valeriote said in a written statement.<\/p>\n
Health Minister Josie Osborne said that prioritizing Canadian companies over American ones is a \u201ckey priority\u201d for the provincial government, though she would not disclose details from the procurement process. She said that prices and information about negotiations with companies on procurement decisions are confidential.<\/p>\n
The ministry provided a statement saying that vendor choice is based on criteria that include product expiry, cost, and ability to deliver on time. More information about the successful vendor bid will be released in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"B.C. to buy U.S. nasal naloxone as Vancouver company says it can make a cheaper option Published 5:00…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55],"class_list":["post-486703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}