There’s a New Player In The Pharmaceutical Court
There’s a new player in pill the game; a company started by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. The “Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company” has made it its mission to help everyone get safe, affordable medicines. The online pharmacy offers users generic drugs and promises steep discounts over traditional distributors.
Many Americans often find themselves scouring the internet to find the best rate for their Rxs. An example is Albendazole; Cost Plus Drug Company showed it as $4.20 for 30 tablets that are 20 milligrams, Walgreens came in at $16.23, Costco at $12.59, and CVS at $12.96. The company’s mission statement, in part, is, “…to dramatically reduce the cost of drugs like Albendazole, but we also think that it is just as important to introduce transparency to the pricing of drugs, so patients know they are getting a fair price.”
At its launch in January, Cost Plus offered more than 100 generic prescription medicines, many at eye-popping discounts. In late March, the company added an additional 50 low-cost medications to its product list.
The online pharmacy says its able to offer lower prices by bypassing health care industry “middlemen.” By doing so it helps consumers avoid high drug prices by charging manufacturers’ prices plus a flat 15% markup and pharmacist fee. Cuban’s pharmacy says it will negotiate drug prices directly with manufacturers to lower costs for consumers. The pharmacy doesn’t accept health insurance but says prices will still be lower than what people would typically pay at a pharmacy.
Sky-high drug costs have long been a problem in the U.S. A Gallup poll released in September found that 18 million Americans reported being unable to afford at least one doctor-prescribed medication in the previous three months. President Biden said in December that the U.S. had to do something about “outrageously expensive” prescription drugs.
So just how deep are these discounts? One drug for diabetes patients, metformin, sells for $3.90 for a 30-day supply, compared to a retail price of $20, the pharmacy said. Take fluoxetine, the generic equivalent of Prozac, a treatment for depression. A 30-day supply of the generic normally retails for $21.92. You can get the same thing from Cost Plus for $3.90. A 30-count of imatinib, which is used to treat leukemia and other cancers, goes for as low as $17.10 at Cuban’s pharmacy compared with $2,502.60 at other pharmacies- a shocking comparison.
This recent launch is only the beginning for Cuban – he recently unveiled a new Twitter community that is designed to spark conversation around drug prices. “We just created the Cost Plus Drugs Community, where everyone can discuss drug pricing, what we are doing to change it, and you can offer your suggestions and ideas on what can be done,” Mr. Cuban said in a March 30 tweet.
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