Earlier this year, our ability to treat feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) in Canada was revolutionized through legal access to imported GS-441524. I don’t use “revolutionized” lightly. This drug has changed FIP from an almost invariably fatal disease to one with a 90+% cure rate in cats.

People have (illegally) imported black market versions of this drug over the past few years, which created tough ethical issues for veterinarians. While the black market drugs often worked, it was still illegal use at a few levels, and safety was always still a big concern. Access to legal drug produced with good manufacturing practices with proper quality control was huge challenge.

Starting in February 2024, Canadian veterinarians were able to import GS-441524 via Canada’s Emergency Drug Release (EDR) process. Although actually pretty straightforward and efficient, this process adds some cost and hassles as a specific request must be made for each patient. The bigger concern was the added time; even though the turn-around time for EDR requests by Health Canada’s Veterinary Drug Directorate was really good, the need to get approval, then order the drug, then have it shipped from the UK, meant 7-10 day between when the patient was identified to actually getting the drug. For cats that are critically ill with this terrible disease, that delay could often be the difference between full recovery and death.

We are now having the FIP Treatment Revolution 2.0 in Canada! A Canadian pharmacy (Trutina Pharmacy) is now producing GS-441524 legally, with pharmaceutical grade drug and proper quality control, in collaboration with BOVA, the UK pharmacy from which we’ve been importing this drug with EDR approval since earlier this year.

This is huge, because it means veterinarians can now order this life-saving drug and get it within a day or two. It also means that we don’t have the same drug ordering, stocking and distribution restrictions that are in place for drugs obtained by EDR. The net result is much quicker access to the same high quality product, and likely saving more cats in the process!

We typically avoid talking about specific products and companies on this blog. This is an exception since Trutina is the only company that can legally compound GS-441524 in Canada. I’ve been in touch with them regularly as they’ve been gearing up for this, but have no financial or other relationship with them. Similarly, I was in regular touch with BOVA, their partner in this venture, as we worked to get access to this drug via EDR a year ago, but have no financial or other relationship with them either.