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Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

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Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#71

Post by tzs »

Crazyontap wrote: post #54
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #7

On one hand, we should obviously applaud anyone doing anything to bring down drug prices. On the other hand, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with just how much free marketing and PR is being applied to the "Mark Cuban Pharmacy" without much critical examination of what's going on here. Taking one of the examples straight from their homepage: They will sell you 30 Prozac tablets for $3.90: https://costplusdrugs.com/med…

> You can drive to any local Walmart and get it for $4 and they will bill your insurance > and they're going to charge an extra $5.00 shipping at checkout I'd say driving to wallmart and dealing with insurance can be as much as $5 worth of gas and time for some.

$4 is the cash price for (most) Walmart generics. You can just pay that yourself and not deal with insurance if you prefer. It’s $10 for a 90 day supply if your want to cut down on the driving.

Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#72

Post by [deleted] »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #58
treis wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amazing thing is that he's telling everyone exactly what he's doing. He wants to extract 15% as a middleman in an industry that transacts 100+ billion a year. All for running a simple website and taking on a tiny bit of transaction risk. And people think it's a charity instead of business worth billions.

In America, it is a charity effectively to provide what is essentially a public service by “only” taking a 15% cut on generics when other manufacturers are selling at magnitudes higher costs. It’s Costco for generic meds. No one calls Costco a charity, but their employees and customers love them for being fair and their business is held up as an example of how to create value from customer loyalty. And they still gen…

[deleted]

Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#73

Post by BurningFrog »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #58
treis wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amazing thing is that he's telling everyone exactly what he's doing. He wants to extract 15% as a middleman in an industry that transacts 100+ billion a year. All for running a simple website and taking on a tiny bit of transaction risk. And people think it's a charity instead of business worth billions.

In America, it is a charity effectively to provide what is essentially a public service by “only” taking a 15% cut on generics when other manufacturers are selling at magnitudes higher costs. It’s Costco for generic meds. No one calls Costco a charity, but their employees and customers love them for being fair and their business is held up as an example of how to create value from customer loyalty. And they still gen…

Costco already is Costco for generic meds!

What I've heard (not researched) is that they typically have the lowest drug prices.

Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#74

Post by briHass »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #7

On one hand, we should obviously applaud anyone doing anything to bring down drug prices. On the other hand, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with just how much free marketing and PR is being applied to the "Mark Cuban Pharmacy" without much critical examination of what's going on here. Taking one of the examples straight from their homepage: They will sell you 30 Prozac tablets for $3.90: https://costplusdrugs.com/med…

>I'm concerned that Mark Cuban is capitalizing on people's lack of understanding about how insurance works and how easy it can be to look up drug prices (use your insurance company's website or just pick up the phone and call your pharmacy, they'll check for you)

That certainly hasn't been my experience. Most pharmacies I've tried this with need to actually 'fill' the script and run it through insurance to get a final price. And, in the era of 'COVID-related staffing shortages', good luck calling the pharmacy and actually getting someone on the line.

The sad thing is, all these pharmacies know about GoodRx and other discount providers. They could stop playing games and just run all scripts through these providers to get a 'cash price', but they don't. It's honestly like shopping at Kohls where if you aren't stacking coupons, you're the sucker paying too much.

I don't know about Cuban's mechanics here, but a website that shows you the final price, no games/codes, is a great addition to the market.

Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#75

Post by treis »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #58
treis wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amazing thing is that he's telling everyone exactly what he's doing. He wants to extract 15% as a middleman in an industry that transacts 100+ billion a year. All for running a simple website and taking on a tiny bit of transaction risk. And people think it's a charity instead of business worth billions.

In America, it is a charity effectively to provide what is essentially a public service by “only” taking a 15% cut on generics when other manufacturers are selling at magnitudes higher costs. It’s Costco for generic meds. No one calls Costco a charity, but their employees and customers love them for being fair and their business is held up as an example of how to create value from customer loyalty. And they still gen…

(1) His prices aren't really any better than retail pharmacy with GoodRx. The generics for little money is well covered.

(2) Costco actually does shit. They build buildings, hire pharmacists, buy inventory in bulk, and sell it to you in the store. Cuban has a website that takes 3 months to build and a little bit of transaction risk.

Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#76

Post by ALittleLight »

Either I don't understand the phrase "Vertical integration" or Mark Cuban doesn't. Cuban says "We basically created a vertically integrated manufacturing company." But, they don't do manufacturing, because later Cuban says "The manufacturers love what we're doing for that reason". They also apparently don't do the pharmacy aspect because Cuban says his company "charges a $3 pharmacy fee to pay the pharmacists it works with".

It sounds to me like this is less of a vertically integrated drug manufacturer and more of a website to resell generics at a 15% markup plus pharmacy fee plus shipping and handling.

Looking at his website I see a "powered by truepill" logo at the bottom. Truepill seems to be a company that does online pharmacies... So, Cuban Cost Plus is, possibly, a digital storefront for truepill?

Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#77

Post by thaumasiotes »

gm wrote: post #57
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #7

On one hand, we should obviously applaud anyone doing anything to bring down drug prices. On the other hand, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with just how much free marketing and PR is being applied to the "Mark Cuban Pharmacy" without much critical examination of what's going on here. Taking one of the examples straight from their homepage: They will sell you 30 Prozac tablets for $3.90: https://costplusdrugs.com/med…

I'm not sure what your point is: It seems you are cherrypicking and then generalizing. For example Duloxetine (generic for Cymbalta) is $4 at CostPlus and $15 at the Walmart link. That in and of itself really does not prove anything either. I may be wrong, though, it's just one additional data point. Maybe you can do the analysis you mention and publish it? The worst that will happen is that all us laypeople will be…

> I think though that CostPlus, if nothing else, has opened the eyes of a great many people who just assumed medicine was like any other product where the manufacturer controls the price

Like any other product? There are zero products like that. Manufacturers aren't legally able to control the price even if they propose a contract with a resale price clause. That's why everything has a "manufacturer's suggested retail price" printed on it.

Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#78

Post by gruez »

mattnewton wrote: post #59
refurb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I got my grocery store and they say “buy 5 bottles of shampoo and mail your receipt for a $5 rebate” am I getting a “kick back”? PBM rebates are not illegal. They aren’t transparent to patients (which is a problem) but they aren’t illegal.

I think this metaphor is missing a step - it would be like if you somehow bought "shampoo insurance," and under this policy the insurance company paid for your shampoo needs in exchange for a fixed monthly fee. And since people are buying under their shampoo insurance policies, then one shampoo company starts paying people directly to effectively direct the insurance companies dollars towards their brand. Isn't that…

>Of course, this could lead to a bigger problem, because insurance companies could account for programs like this in rates, and now you have an arms race where your policy only makes cost sense if you are getting these incentive payments.

Aren't the two in equilibrium though? The price of the kickback is priced into the MSRP of the drug, and the kickback you get is priced into the cost of the policy. If the kickback disappears, both would cancel out.

Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#79

Post by wnevets »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #7

On one hand, we should obviously applaud anyone doing anything to bring down drug prices. On the other hand, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with just how much free marketing and PR is being applied to the "Mark Cuban Pharmacy" without much critical examination of what's going on here. Taking one of the examples straight from their homepage: They will sell you 30 Prozac tablets for $3.90: https://costplusdrugs.com/med…

> anything to bring down drug prices. On the other hand, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with just how much free marketing and PR is being applied to the "Mark Cuban Pharmacy" without much critical examination of what's going on here.

I've avoided simple things like up voting stories about it for exactly this reason. Sure the headline sounds great but without actually going through the math and how the site works who knows if it's actually good.

Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#80

Post by 1123581321 »

refurb wrote: post #12

You can see the prices on the website: https://costplusdrugs.com/medications/ A quick search of 2-3 drugs shows it comparable to Goodrx. And with Goodrx I can go to my local pharmacy and get it today.

This is an actual pharmacy. Goodrx is wonderful, but it's basically an exploit of the existing pharmacy+PBM system and pharmacies would love to cut it off. Real pharmacies with cheap and transparent pricing are going to be better for patients in the long run.
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