The startup that billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban co-founded to disrupt the pharmaceutical industry is shipping the first drugs it manufactured to two hospitals that need them.
Bloomberg reported that starting Wednesday, Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co. is sending out its first batch of allergy medication, epinephrine, and blood pressure drug, norepinephrine, to 10 hospitals in Texas and Pennsylvania.
Both drugs face nationwide shortages and Cost Plus began producing them at its Dallas facility last month, according to Bloomberg. Epinephrine injections are currently in shortage, according to the FDA drug shortages database at the time of writing.
Mark Cuban. Photo credit: Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Cost Plus, which Cuban co-founded with radiologist Alex Oshmyansky, launched in January 2022 and now delivers more than 2,300 prescription medications through its online pharmacy.
The startup has an ambitious mission, to sell medications safely and at the lowest possible price point, which it strives to accomplish with transparent prices. According to a letter Cuban wrote on the startup’s website, every drug that the company sells is priced the same way: Cost Plus takes the base price of the medication that it has to pay, marks up the price by 15%, and then adds on the actual cost that the pharmacy charges them to prepare the medication.
So a drug like Albendazole, for example, which treats ringworm and costs around $113 according to Drugs.com, would be $35 for customers through that pricing method with Cost Plus, as per the letter. Cuban wrote that the cost the startup had to pay for the medication was $26.08.
“Many people are spending crazy amounts of money each month just to stay healthy,” Cuban wrote. “No American should have to suffer or worse – because they can’t afford basic prescription medications.”
Cost Plus also announced on Tuesday that it would be partnering with Price.com to integrate its drug prices into Price.com’s AI comparison tool.
Customers who use Cost Plus can opt to pick up prescriptions at 5,000 affiliated pharmacies across the country as of last month or opt for pickup at 2,000 Kroger grocery stores as of July of last year.
Amazon Pharmacy is another direct-to-consumer online pharmacy platform that recently announced same-day delivery in New York City and Los Angeles, with plans to expand to more than a dozen cities by the end of 2024.