Besides that money is probably not the case in Thalls case, I interned with a spinal surgeon and learned about this stuff and you wouldn't believe how long it takes for a new drug or procedure to become legalized and approved in the states for regular treatment.
I don't know about this particular drug, but there's some seemingly ground-breaking spinal surgery stuff thats not allowed in the states right now even though its been tested successfully over the past 5-10 years. It is allowed in NZ and a couple other countries though that don't take so long to approve procedures or drugs.