The future of the pharmaceutical industry could be changing real soon thanks to billionaire and Shark Tank celebrity Mark Cuban. In January 2022, Mr. Cuban launched the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Company (MCCPDC). Cuban is taking an alternative approach in the pharmaceutical industry by bypassing middlemen to lower prices. More specifically, he has developed an online generic medication drugstore that claims significant savings over traditional wholesalers. According to the Broadcast.com founder, customers pay the same price that the drugs cost the corporation to manufacture, plus a 15% markup and a pharmacist charge (Hernandez 2022). Cuban’s ultimate goal is to not just substantially reduce the cost of drugs, but also to increase drug pricing transparency so that patients may be certain they are paying a fair price.

While drug prices are rapidly increasing for many Americans, there has been very little progress made by the government to resolve this important issue. According to research undertaken by Dr. Stephen Schondelmeyer of the University of Minnesota, drugmakers raised prices for 72 percent of the top-selling pharmaceuticals in early 2022, with 26 percent of brand-name drugs seeing price increases (Bartz 2022). Last year, Democrats proposed lower prescription medication prices by capping out-of-pocket expenditure for seniors at $2,000 and allowed Medicare to directly negotiate pricing with drugmakers. This new policy is part of Vice President Joe Biden's Build Back Better initiative, which Democrats hoped would gain a vital swing-vote from West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. However, their discussions ultimately did not go anywhere, and Manchin called the bill “dead” (Nguyen 2022). 

According to a Gallup and West Health study from 2021, 18 million Americans, or nearly 7 percent of all individuals in the United States, can't afford at least one prescription recommended by their doctor (Witters 2021). In the last year, around one in ten Americans claimed they missed doses to save money on medicine, a percentage that's nearly double among those earning less than $48,000 per year (Nguyen 2022). Prescription medicine costs are also higher in the United States than in any other industrialized country. According to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Americans spend, on average, more than $1,300 per year on prescription pharmaceuticals (Nguyen 2022).

Since the government has not provided a solution to this problem, Mr. Cuban is providing his solution of selling more than one hundred generic drugs at a lower price. Alex Oshmyansky, CEO of MCCPDC, states, “We will do whatever it takes to get affordable pharmaceuticals to patients. The markup on potentially lifesaving drugs that people depend on is a problem that can't be ignored. It is imperative that we take action and help expand access to these medications for those who need them most" (Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Company 2022). Patients can anticipate a flawless, safe e-commerce experience as they visit the pharmacy's website, created and powered by Truepill, a digital health startup platform. Patients will also benefit from Truepill's countrywide pharmacy network. This network will ensure that their prescriptions are filled and delivered on time.

For us to truly understand the magnitude of what the Dallas Mavericks owner is doing, we should compare Cuban’s prices to retail prices and the lowest prices with a common voucher. Take Imatinib, for example. Imatinib is a notable leukemia treatment that retails for approximately $9,657 per month. The lowest price a patient can purchase Imatinib with a common voucher is $120 per month. However, at the MCCPDC, a patient can receive their necessary leukemia treatment for only $47 per month. Another example is mesalamine, a type of ulcerative colitis treatment. Mesalamine retails for $940 per month and goes for $102 per month as the lowest possible price with a common voucher. Despite this, a patient can receive their mesalamine treatment at MCCPDC for only $32.40 per month, a drastic change from the retail price and the lowest price with a common voucher (Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Company 2022).

Some experts may say that the MCCPDC is simply just another marketing campaign by Mr. Cuban and will not have an effect on the overall landscape of the pharmaceutical industry. At the end of the day, MCCPDC is in a very competitive industry in which the top three traditional pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) are CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, and OptumRx. The three aforementioned PBMs combined control roughly 80% of the entire pharmaceutical market (Cohen 2022). However, this does not seem like another marketing ploy by Mr. Cuban. He is legitimately trying in his way to solve a massive healthcare issue in the United States. Mr. Cuban came from humble beginnings so because of his personal background he can relate to the many Americans struggling to pay for payments.

MCCPDC has a chance to disrupt the healthcare industry by being transparent about its prices and by offering over one hundred vital treatments that are necessary for patients. Joshua Cohen, a healthcare contributor at Forbes, agrees that while MCCPDC offers treatments at affordable prices, he also states, “limited offerings and being a cash-only business lessen the disruptive impact of Cuban’s innovative online pharmacy on the prescription drug market as a whole” (Cohen 2022). MCCPDC already offers a hundred generic drugs and the company has only been in business for three months, not to mention that they just invested $11 million to build a manufacturing facility in Dallas that should be completed later in 2022 (DiFurio 2022). If the company is eventually able to expand the variety of drugs they offer to patients and accept more payment plans, the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Company not only has the potential to stand up to Big Pharma but truly redefine the way we view the pharmaceutical industry.

References

Bartz, Diane. 2022. “U.S. lawmakers seek answers on ‘troubling’ drug price increases.” Reuters. Reuters, March 1, 2022. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/w arren-12-other-us-lawmakers-press-drugs-lobby-group-price-increases-2022-03-01/#:~:text=Schondelmeyer's%20study%20found%20that%20drugmakers,Part%20D%20drugs%20in%20January

Cohen, Joshua. 2022. “Mark Cuban's Online Pharmacy Projected to Disrupt the Prescription Drug Market, but There Are a Few Caveats.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, February 15, 2022. https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2022/02/03/mark-cubans-online-pharmacy-pro jected-to-disrupt-the-prescription-drug-market-but-with-caveats/?sh=199ba96248c0.

Costplusdrugs.com. 2022. Accessed March 4, 2022. https://costplusdrugs.com/. 

Dashevsky, Jared. 2022. “What's the Deal with Mark Cuban's Pharmacy?” Medical News. MedpageToday, February 16, 2022. https://www.medpagetoday.com/popmedicine/ popmedicine/97220. 

DiFurio, Dom. 2021. “Generic Drug Company Backed by Mark Cuban Files to Build $11 Million Manufacturing Plant in Deep Ellum.” Dallas News, February 6, 2021. https://www.dallas news.com/business/entrepreneurs/2021/02/05/generic-drug-company-backed-by-mark-cuban-files-permit-to-build-11-million-warehouse-in-deep-ellum/. 

EPIC. 2022. “Is the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company the Answer to Rising Drug Costs?” EPIC Insurance Brokers & Consultants, January 28, 2022.https://epicbrokers.com/insights/mar k-cuban-cost-plus-drug-company-rising-drug-costs/. 

Hernandez, Joe. 2022. “Billionaire Mark Cuban Launches Online Pharmacy Aimed at Lowering Generic Drug Prices.” NPR. NPR, January 24, 2022. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/24/10753 44246/mark-cuban-pharmacy. 

Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company. 2022. “Mark Cuban Cost plus Drug Company's Online Pharmacy Launches with Lowest Prices on 100 Lifesaving Prescriptions.” Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company's Online Pharmacy Launches with Lowest Prices on 100 Lifesaving Prescriptions, January 19, 2022. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mark-cuban-cost -plus-drug-companys-online-pharmacy-launches-with-lowest-prices-on-100-lifesaving-prescriptions-301463491.html.

Nguyen, Janet. 2022. “Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drug Company Offers Discounted Drugs, but Can It Change the Pharmaceutical Industry?” Marketplace, February 2, 2022. https://www.marketplace.org/2022/02/02/mark-cubans-cost-plus-drug-company-offers-discounted-drugs-but-can-it-change-the-pharmaceutical-industry/. 

Witters, Dan. 2021. “In U.S., an Estimated 18 Million Can't Pay for Needed Drugs.” Gallup.com. Gallup, November 20, 2021. https://news.gallup.com/poll/354833/estimated-million-pay-needed -drugs.aspx.