Owner of Mavs offering own generic brand to combat price gouging by Big Pharma
When universal health care fails to pass in Congress, there is always Mark Cuban to back down. The billionaire and owner of the Dallas Mavericks launched an online pharmacy this week to counter the soaring price hikes of prescription drugs by big drug companies.
Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company (MCCPDC) will offer more than 100 generic drugs that will be purchased directly from manufacturers and sold online with a 15 percent markup across the board and a small pharmacist fee. For reference, drug companies usually mark up prices as low as 100 percent and up to 1000 percent in some cases.
An example of how significant a difference Cuba is making with this new pharmacy can be found in the price of the drug imatinib, which is used to treat leukemia. The retail price is over $9,000 per month. The cost of the voucher is $120. and the price of MCCPDC - $47 per month. While not all markdowns will come at this rate—for example, a common cholesterol drug that goes for $55 will sell for less than $4 on a Cuban site—it's undoubtedly making a difference for American customers.
He told Forbes last year, when he originally joined the creation of the low-cost pharmaceutical company, that he wanted to "make capitalism appear kinder." Relying on the compassion of the insanely wealthy is probably not the most stable economic system one can imagine, especially when such incidents are remarkable rather than a common occurrence. But if there are no rules for drug price hikes, Cuba has us.
The announcement has received widespread praise on social media from Americans, with themselves and their family members being overcharged for life-saving drugs. Washington's 2022 congressional candidate Jason Call tweeted in response to news of the launch, "Have we found a 'good billionaire'? Maybe not, but this one better than anything our pharma-owned Congress can raise." Thoughts.
MCCPDC does not process insurance claims and requires its customers to pay out of pocket, but the full prices they are offering are lower than the multiple copies that insurance companies currently require.
Cuban has been the majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks since 2000, and has been fined a dozen different for making critical comments about the NBA, referees and players, which he says coincides with charitable donations. . He has also bid on several major league baseball teams including the Cubs, Dodgers and Rangers and expressed interest in buying the Penguins. He is known for his short temper in sports – former Mavs player Dirk Nowitzki said in 2006 that he needed to stop yelling at referees – and for his staunch political independence.
The Shark Tank judge originally made his fortune with a variety of investments and his own software resale company, MicroSolutions. He also entered the webcasting field in the 1990s and started his company Yahoo! for $5.7 billion in stock, which is seen as one of the worst Internet acquisitions of all time.