(CNN) Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders will travel to Canada later this month with Type 1 diabetes patients seeking cheaper insulin as part of his ongoing efforts to highlight the hardships imposed by pharmaceutical companies on Americans, his campaign announced Thursday.

The trip, which will leave from Detroit, is scheduled for two days before CNN's presidential primary debates in the city on July 30 and 31.

Sanders has so far set the pace for the 2020 health care debate , with the other candidates either signing on to his "Medicare for All" single payer plan or talking about how their vision differs. And throughout much of his political career, Sanders has targeted pharmaceutical companies over the cost of prescription drugs. He often lists the industry among the powerful few whose interests are at odds with the American public, alongside Wall Street and the wider health care system.

In an interview with CNN Thursday, Sanders directly attributed the rising cost of drugs in the United States, and the disparity with prices in Canada, to the overall difference between the health care systems in the two countries. His focus on prescription drugs is just one part of a broader push for the US to adopt a system similar to the one in Canada.

"Canada has a nationalized, single-payer system that allows them to negotiate much better prices with the drug companies," Sanders told CNN. "In our country it is a much different story. The pharmaceutical companies brought in $69 billion in profit. That is insane and it is a real threat to the health of every American. Congress needs to do something about this and when I am president we will lower the cost of prescription drugs."

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