Mark Cuban's Pharmacy Touts "Safe, Affordable Medicines"

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In January 2021, Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban entered the generic drug market with the launch of his startup, Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, to provide people with low-cost versions of high-cost generic drugs. Now, the pharmacy boasts over 700 prescription generic drugs for a variety of conditions, ranging from acid reflux to dementia to autoimmune diseases like Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Cost Plus’s core value is transparency, which is evident as one searches through the website. The homepage itself is adorned with this quote by Cuban: “Everyone should have safe, affordable medicines with transparent prices.” The company also states that there are no middlemen or price games, leaving customers with huge drug savings.

Browsing the drug prices that Cuban offers, this seems to be overwhelmingly true. One of the best examples of huge savings is the generic drug albendazole, an anti-parasitic that is used for patients who are infected with tapeworms. Normally, the drug would cost someone $6,565.28 out of pocket, but Cuban offers it for $453, saving patients more than $6,000 to prevent parasites from multiplying within their bodies.

So, how does it work? If someone wanted to use the Cost Plus pharmacy, they would head over to the website to search for their medication, ask their doctor to send Cost Plus the prescription and then receive the medication by mail. The pharmacy is also upfront about how it prices its generic medication. The calculated cost for customers comes from adding up the manufacturing costs of the drug plus a 15% markup for pharmacy labor and shipping costs.

The company states that it prices its drugs as close to the manufacturer’s price as possible, noting that most generic drugs are very inexpensive to make, and the 15% fee is used to “support” its operations and team who work to negotiate lower drug prices. The negotiation for lower drug prices is through a private label agreement, where Cost Plus contracts with a third-party supplier to receive unfinished prescription drugs and then carry them through the final stages of processing.

But is the proof in the pudding? Patients are taking to the website to see how much money they can save, and it seems the results are mixed. Allana Akhtar reported for Business Insider that while she did save money using the service, it wasn’t enough to justify using the service again. Akhtar used Cost Plus for her mental health condition, and while she found the process simple and easy to use, she ended up not saving any more money than she would have using her insurance at the pharmacy. She typically paid an $8 co-pay on the medication at the pharmacy, and Cost Plus priced her drug at $3.90 plus a $5 shipping fee, negating any price savings.

Early criticisms of the company have noted that for some people, using their comprehensive insurance plan could still be cheaper than using the online pharmacy, which does not accept any form of health insurance. However, for those that are uninsured, the company is a valuable option, as they otherwise wouldn’t have access to potentially life-saving treatments.

The pharmacy may also prompt change in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry, with a recent study finding that if Medicare were paying the same prices as those listed in 2022 on Cost Plus, it would have saved over $4 billion in 2020.