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If the incumbent is a large scale pharmaceutical company with thousands of drugs in its portfolio, then it can most definitely afford to lose money under-cuttin

If the incumbent is a large scale pharmaceutical company with thousands of drugs in its portfolio, then it can most definitely afford to lose money under-cutting you when you only make a small handful. And I think that really just underscores why this approach is the Google Fiber of the US pharma market— it may be able to force prices down for a handful of select customers, and may be helpful for proving a point about true costs and the need for regulation, but its existence is most certainly not some kind of proof of the invisible hand stepping in to solve this problem on its own and that regulation is therefore unnecessary.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> it can most definitely afford to lose money under-cutting you when you only make a small handful Which gives you a textbook Sherman Act claim. In any case, a loss-tolerant competitor doesn't argue for a 50% discount versus 90%.
- mikepurvis 6y ago
  Of course not— it argues for not bothering to enter this space at all unless you're doing so with ulterior motives, for example as a PR stunt. As for antitrust laws, isn't the whole point that we're in this mess because the incumbents are all conspiring to fix prices and the existing consumer protection systems which should be preventing that have been failing Americans for decades and thank goodness for the free market which created the necessary incentives for Mark Cuban to swoop in and start this business?
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > incumbents are all conspiring to fix prices and the existing consumer protection systems which should be preventing that have been failing Americans for decades The Sherman Act prohibits monopolies or cartels damaging competitors. As a competitor, you have standing. As a consumer, you do not. I think this business could be phenomenally cash-flow positive in short order. It's not dissimilar from the way Teva started, just further down the pipeline.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> it can most definitely afford to lose money under-cutting you when you only make a small handful Which gives you a textbook Sherman Act claim. In any case, a loss-tolerant competitor doesn't argue for a 50% discount versus 90%.

mikepurvis 6y ago
Of course not— it argues for not bothering to enter this space at all unless you're doing so with ulterior motives, for example as a PR stunt. As for antitrust laws, isn't the whole point that we're in this mess because the incumbents are all conspiring to fix prices and the existing consumer protection systems which should be preventing that have been failing Americans for decades and thank goodness for the free market which created the necessary incentives for Mark Cuban to swoop in and start this business?
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > incumbents are all conspiring to fix prices and the existing consumer protection systems which should be preventing that have been failing Americans for decades The Sherman Act prohibits monopolies or cartels damaging competitors. As a competitor, you have standing. As a consumer, you do not. I think this business could be phenomenally cash-flow positive in short order. It's not dissimilar from the way Teva started, just further down the pipeline.