The whole story seems utterly insane to me. The fact that Novo Nordisk went back to ask for a refund of $250 they paid for the patent in 2017 shows that there was active intent behind this, this wasn't just some internal disconnect between payment systems that prevented the money from being sent to the government. Who at NN thought that saving, what, ~$1000 total was justified for this? I thought companies of this scale didn't even think on the scale of thousands of dollars anymore.
Oh well, at least we in Canada get more generic drug variants. Thanks!
Insane to the point that it doesn't seem believable. Even if the patent was worthless it wouldn't have been worth their time to pursue that refund just for the $250.
Another comment here mentioned that patents in Canada come with strings on pricing. So it's possible there was an actual trade-off that was considered here.
Apparently they can get around the government price controls by getting off the patent. I guess they figured it was better to keep prices high so americans didnt border hop but lose the exclusivity sooner
Oh well, at least we in Canada get more generic drug variants. Thanks!