9 ms·

Mark Cuban is tackling out-of-control drug prices

78 points by olalonde 4y ago

kiawe_fire 4y ago
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  Somehow I don't recall that being the president's core platform, at all
  - dontbenebby 4y ago
    Because you are posting from a place called "reality" alongside me. (Though only mnetaphorically, I hope... meeting people from the internet "IRL" rarely ends well in my experience.)
- dontbenebby 4y ago
  Many people agree with that policy and respect elections. Stop trolling.
  - kiawe_fire 4y ago
    Trolling? I was making a genuine observation. I wasn’t aware that Cuban was a supporter of many of Trump’s initiatives like this, but perhaps he was. I was just pointing out what I thought was an objective observation that a business person opposed politician working towards {thing x} and then suddenly emerged with a business doing {thing x} once the potential public sector competition was out of the way. But of course this assumes a degree of pessimistic motivation from Cuban. Given how often these kinds of motivations are assumed of people who challenge a public sector solution, I didn’t think to justify that assumption much, but I can see now how not doing so might have come across as trollish.
- lol1lol 4y ago
  while its sleazy to not be forthcoming, I've a feeling in general a private competition is better than a US gov. Sometimes it's hard to create right private marketplaces, and healthcare is one of those areas.
- midislack 4y ago
  - giarc 4y ago
    TDS?
    - Mountain_Skies 4y ago
      Trump Derangement Syndrome. Not liking Trump or his policies is one thing but people with "TDS" make him a central part of their identity and constantly look for ways to work their hatred of him into every situation.
      - mgkimsal 4y ago
        > ... but people with "TDS" make him a central part of their identity ... What do you call people who make Trump a central part of their identity and constantly look for ways to work their hatred of Biden/Democrats in to every situation?
        s1artibartfast 4y ago
        MAGA republicans.
        esotericimpl 4y ago
        alistairSH 4y ago
        Buttery Males?
    - sparc24 4y ago
      He did put video on the internet though.
    - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
      It's an acronym used by right-wing extremists to describe anyone who disagreed with Trump on his nationalist agenda. Trump Derangement Syndrome.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  If you're referring to the executive order the previous president issued in Sept 2020, you're only partially correct. Yes, he ordered HHS to research alternative pricing models. But, the statutory ability to do so was granted by the ACA which the administration and party spent the entire term attempting to overturn, taking it as far as SCOTUS. And HHS eventually declined to implement any changes. Summary here... https://www.americanprogress.org/article/little-late-trumps-prescription-drug-executive-order-not-help-patients/ https://www.americanprogress.org/article/little-late-trumps-...
treis 4y ago
This keeps showing up but it's total bullshit. Cuban wants to take 15% of the transaction for running a web site and processing payment. They're not manufacturing drugs. They're not buying drugs. They're not shipping drugs. They're not doing anything at all besides taking your order and giving it to someone to do all those things. It's not a charity. It's a profitable business and a very profitable one at that. Oh yeah, and the prices aren't lower than what you can get using GoodRX.
- lcall 4y ago
  From one of those prior discussions, a related nonprofit effort to lower prices of drugs that are sometimes in short supply or overpriced, where the founding Utah hospital system has joined with other hospital systems, has a solid, long-term reputation (and good personal experience--their intake agreement to get a blood sample drawn totaled 2 reasonable pages, where the next-nearest hospital came out at 11) and have generally done friendly good work for a long time as far as I can tell. Wikipedia said (lightly shortened): "Civica Rx is a nonprofit generic drug company founded in 2018 by national philanthropies and leading U.S. health systems[1] to reduce and prevent drug shortages in the United States and the price spikes that can accompany them. .... While serving 55 health systems and 1,500 hospitals (or 1/3 of all licensed U.S. hospital beds), Civica also supplies the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Department of Defense, and “340B” hospitals caring for vulnerable patients in some of the country’s most underserved areas. As of January 2022, Civica provided nearly 70 million vials of essential medicines, enough to treat over 26 million patients across the United States. These numbers continue to grow as Civica moves from a start-up to a well-established societal asset, serving more patients every day. Most recently, eleven of Civica's 55+ medications are being used to help COVID-19 patients, including neuromuscular blocking agents, sedation agents and pain management medications for patients on ventilators." Etc. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civica_Rx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civica_Rx ) https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals-health-systems/drug-prices-healthcare-costs-intermountain-healthcare-civica-rx-generic https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals-health-systems/dr... (thanks to pottertheotter in another HN link/discussion about Mark Cuban, below) https://civicarx.org/ https://civicarx.org/ Other prior discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25932233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25932233 ("The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company" about which I don't know anything more.)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
duxup 4y ago
I can't count how many articles about X company or investor is addressing this issue and I don't think anyone has solved it. I can't find any magic numbers here that explains how the proposal here to replace the "middleman" lowers prices ... by just being another middleman...
- lcall 4y ago
  I think CivicaRx might be your answer. (See my comment elsewhere on this page, if you Ctrl-F for lcall.)
bayareabadboy 4y ago
Admittedly I don’t know a ton about Mark Cuban, other than he kinda seems like a simpleton. But if he’s able to have a profitable drug company that doesn’t produce drugs that lowers costs for consumers.. Welp that kinda shows that the system is in need of some change. Good on this company for helping that though. Hopefully the clever people in the industry take notice and further improve things.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- MisterBastahrd 4y ago
  He's probably just buying them wholesale and setting a fixed profit margin. Color me shocked if it ends up harming independent pharmacists, though... and I say that as someone who thinks universal healthcare is the way to go in the US. Wonder how long before he decides to sell this company to Walmart.
  - bearjaws 4y ago
    It's worse than wholesale, its drug drop shipping. This will not save more money than GoodRx.
  - gruez 4y ago
    >Color me shocked if it ends up harming independent pharmacists, though Should I care? They're still middlemen at the end of the day.
    - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
      Those of us who have forgotten how Walmart decimated middle America are doomed to repeat it. It's a good thing that people will receive drugs at low prices, but most drug companies have programs to deliver them for low prices anyway. When those local pharmacies die, then large companies will step in and jack up the costs anyway. And if you don't believe that Cuban would sell that company, then you haven't paid attention to his history. The man is many things, but altruistic isn't one of them.
jonathan-adly 4y ago
I totally respect the earned media game. A+ marketing. The actual business (so far) is pretty straight-forward: 1. Call an API to TruePill pharmacy 2. They fill it under the Costplus label and mail it. 3. Cost of drug is acquisition + a small markup that Costplus and Truepill share 4. Display the Truepill API fields in a NEXT.js website I totally respect Truepill operational chops too. Pharmacy is a very tough business. I am waiting for someone to figure out how to break the PBMs pricing-power (monoply-like) control over that business. That would be the true breakthrough. Maybe it would be costplus in a pivot. Or a regulatory change. Also - I deal with CivicaRX in a daily basis. It is a valiant attempt, but they have major shortcomings. FYI: If someone wants an API that really tells how much drug costs. (trust, but verify!) https://data.medicaid.gov/dataset/dfa2ab14-06c2-457a-9e36-5cb6d80f8d93/data?conditions[0][property]=as_of_date&conditions[0][value]=2022-05-25&conditions[0][operator]=%3D https://data.medicaid.gov/dataset/dfa2ab14-06c2-457a-9e36-5c...
- tootie 4y ago
  User acquisition is a big thing. There are loads of people (including doctors) who lean on brand name drugs when generics are available and it's largely about that brand. Drug names are obscure and drug brands become trusted. If Cuban can successfully build a brand with a lot of awareness then that has the potential to uplift the entire generics market. Even if the actual mechanics of the business are nothing special.
  - jonathan-adly 4y ago
    It doesn't quite work like that in pharmacy! 1. Your insurance can and will block certain pharmacies if they got big enough (see PillPack before the Amazon acquisition). They have their own pharmacies and route the most profitable scripts there. 2. You would run into market size limitation if you decide to never accept insurance 3. Getting someone to switch their pharmacy requires major effort on their part - as well as the cooperation of all their doctors. It's almost like switching IT vendors!!
- Dan_- 4y ago
  Yeah it's all over Reddit too. I can't wait to read all about it in Ad Age and MM+M. It's a good campaign...burnishes Cuban's image while building the brand.
bearjaws 4y ago
This is just drug drop shipping, this will only save you money if you are already using an expensive pharmacy.
- josefresco 4y ago
  I think you underestimate the number of people who don't realize that "drug drop shipping" is a thing. In the US at least, you go to your doctor, they send your prescriptions to your local pharmacy, and then you hope/pray it's cheap (depending on your insurance) when you go pick it up. There is no discussion of "where" to send them and what is an "affordable" pharmacy vs "expensive". Is my local CVS an "expensive pharmacy"? No clue, but before Cuban's website I didn't even consider that these type of businesses could help lower my drug costs even below what I pay WITH insurance. There's also a huge disconnect between people who occasionally need prescriptions, and those that rely on prescription medication daily. If you get one script a year it probably doesn't matter, but if your disease requires a drug that costs $5K/month, you get very informed, very fast.
  - elzbardico 4y ago
    Yeah, this was a shock to me. Never understood the reason for that, TBH. It is more work for the doctor office.
- yunohn 4y ago
  And in your well informed opinion, what would you say is the ratio of people who use normal pharmacies versus drug drop shipping?
  - bearjaws 4y ago
    har har. Except I work in industry, both specialty and retail pharmacies. For any chronic disease (the ones this program benefits most), most doctors will get you setup with the cheapest option for your insurance / PBM. As cost of treatment is the #4 indicator whether people will fall off treatment in the United States[1]. Additionally, in a retrospective study, cost was cited as the main reason for non-adherence in 17% of cases, making it the #3 leading cause[2]. This number is as high as 55% depending on age / demographic... Doctors working in chronic diseases know this and have to deal with it like any other adherence issue. For one off treatments, people usually just go to their grocery store or local pharmacy. Are there patients who are over paying? Absolutely. Is this a cash grab by a multi-billionaire because its not actually addressing the issues resulting in expensive drugs? Absolutely. [1] adherence to refills and medications scale [2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3934668/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3934668/
giantg2 4y ago
Good luck actually being able to use it. The biggest problem I have I being forced into using CVS because the insurance side has merged with the pharmacy side and requires that I use their services for most things. On a side note, the service quality they provide is terrible and they have repeatedly sent me false information regarding my family's prescriptions. The insurance companies are one of the main problems. It sounds like this doesn't solve that.
hkt 4y ago
This is absolutely baffling to me. I live in the UK and was given a non-NHS prescription after a diagnosis for ADHD, and a month's medication is £13. Why are pharmaceuticals in the US so expensive?
- kcplate 4y ago
  Some are. The latest and greatest are. Generic medications are often inexpensive or free (with insurance). I take 4 regular medications, one has a cost...with my insurance it’s $7 a month ($25 without). 3 are free insurance or not because my grocery/pharmacy provides them for free because the want me to buy their inflated grocery prices instead of going across the road to spend my money at their competitors.
  - seanhunter 4y ago
    In the UK for people on low or no incomes or people under or over certain ages all prescription drugs are free and for everyone else they are a fixed charge per item (usually 9.35GBP). This is regardless of whether they are the latest and greatest or a generic. https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/prescriptions-and-pharmacies/nhs-prescription-charges/ https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/prescriptions-and-pharmacies... The US has one of the highest per-capita spends on healthcare in the world[1] for demonstrably poorer health outcomes[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea... and elsewhere [2] eg the CIA factbook all-cause mortality table shows Bangladesh as having about half the mortality rate of the US. https://web.archive.org/web/20201010211308/https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/346.html https://web.archive.org/web/20201010211308/https://www.cia.g...
    - kcplate 4y ago
      So what you are saying is…that my Rx costs are more than 6x lower than what the same medications would cost in the UK. Good to know.
lvl102 4y ago
Mark Cuban is not solving ANYTHING. Can we please stop worshipping billionaires who got extremely lucky during market bubbles? I think Kim Kardashian has a better chance of fixing the drug prices.
Matt_Cutts 4y ago
(Disclosure: I invested in this company at YC back in 2018, when it was Osh’s Affordable Pharmaceuticals) That article is a bit short on details. Some other recent articles I thought were more helpful included https://www.healio.com/news/rheumatology/20220428/mark-cuban-enters-online-prescription-market-nibbling-at-the-edge-of-transparency https://www.healio.com/news/rheumatology/20220428/mark-cuban... and https://www.drugtopics.com/view/the-good-the-bad-and-the-missed-opportunity-of-mark-cuban-cost-plus-drug-company https://www.drugtopics.com/view/the-good-the-bad-and-the-mis... . The second article is written more from the perspective of independent pharmacies. The first article includes this snippet: "If there is reason for optimism, though, it lies with the medical background of Oshmyansky, the company’s co-founder and CEO, according to Gewanter. 'The radiologist Cuban is working with knows the business,' Gewanter said. 'Between the two of them, it is not difficult to imagine that they will figure out where the gaps are and how to exploit them. We can only hope that when they do, our patients will be the beneficiaries.' " I think YC made a fantastic choice including Alex's company in YC, and it's been a pleasure seeing what Alex has done and is doing. I'll stop there for now.
miguelazo 4y ago
So he's doing everything but addressing the root problem, like every other neoliberal grifter. But worse, he's helping perpetuate the myth that the manufacturers aren't the worst actor in all of this. As if they hadn't blocked every reasonable reform that came along. Just like with guns, other countries don't have this problem, for very simple reasons. Why do people keep posting garbage like this?
- bumby 4y ago
  >for very simple reasons Anyone who claims the solutions to the U.S. healthcare problems are simple doesn't understand the U.S. healthcare system.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - miguelazo 4y ago
    And therein lies the actual problem. Far less complex systems in other countries with similar per capita GDP do not have this issue. And part of the reason they're less complex is because they don't allow a basic human need to be managed by a mostly for-profit system.
    - bumby 4y ago
      Not said with snark, but do you think you're the first person to think the system should be simplified? Do you understand that part of the reason the other systems are more simple is because they effectively rely on the U.S. healthcare system for things like R&D? It's pretty easy to create a simpler system when you can ignore certain aspects because someone else will pick up the slack. The problem with the "simple" solutions is they often assume we start from a blank slate. Acknowledging we're not starting from a clean slate where do you propose we simplify first? And before you reply can you think about 1) how will it be done, including the political aspect and 2) what is the potential unintended blowback from that change?
broberts01 4y ago
Anyone checking out this should also look at GoodRx. Full disclosure, I work at GoodRx. I think we beat them on prices for the most part but it is always good to check theirs too. They beat our prices sometimes. I am all for picking whatever the lowest price is. That is the whole goal.
- Riseed 4y ago
  If it's not insurance or drop shipping, what does GoodRx do that results in cheaper prescriptions for customers? For awhile, they were saving me $100/mo.
- Jcowell 4y ago
  I think GoodRx has a marketing problem. I’ve heard of it but I never knew what it does. Just sounds like another pharmacy to me. An ad addressing those would go a long way. Target most sought after drugs and advertise those low prices
kylen 4y ago
There was a reddit thread about this article yesterday and it was filled with people who were suddenly able to find their medication for orders of magnitude cheaper. This meant that for some it made an immediate and significant financial difference to their lives, and for others it meant access to medication they could not previously afford. In some cases reading this article was being described as "life saving". This is very interesting but not because Cuban's business model is unique. It suggests that this group, who are probably a bit more net savvy on average, were not aware of other similar businesses like GoodRX. This implies that there is a highly in demand product (cheap medication) but the problem is awareness, so it's a marketing challenge. Cuban is very well positioned to solve this problem by using his personal brand and tools like these PR articles. This is a good thing! He has the brand, marketing chops and resources to drive it forward. It will increase the size of the market, meaning more people have access to life changing affordable medication. This may spawn more clones of the business model, further increasing the market size, rinse repeat. If this market gets big enough maybe it will apply pressure for change upstream? That would be a great thing. Here on HN we are heavily weighted in our thinking towards the value of product in business (which is normally undervalued) and that is great, but examples like this reveal a real blind spot. Sometimes the value of something like marketing is forgotten or even worse dismissed. But they're extremely powerful tools when used correctly. Apply good marketing to a good product and you have Apple.
- lelandfe 4y ago
  > were not aware of other similar businesses like GoodRX There are folks in this thread alone finding CostPlus prescriptions for significantly less than GoodRx. Your tone is dismissive - how confident are you that Cuban’s pricing is not actually cheaper, and is just glitz?

78 points by olalonde 4y ago

spywaregorilla 4y ago
Somehow I don't recall that being the president's core platform, at all
- dontbenebby 4y ago
  Because you are posting from a place called "reality" alongside me. (Though only mnetaphorically, I hope... meeting people from the internet "IRL" rarely ends well in my experience.)
dontbenebby 4y ago
Many people agree with that policy and respect elections. Stop trolling.
- kiawe_fire 4y ago
  Trolling? I was making a genuine observation. I wasn’t aware that Cuban was a supporter of many of Trump’s initiatives like this, but perhaps he was. I was just pointing out what I thought was an objective observation that a business person opposed politician working towards {thing x} and then suddenly emerged with a business doing {thing x} once the potential public sector competition was out of the way. But of course this assumes a degree of pessimistic motivation from Cuban. Given how often these kinds of motivations are assumed of people who challenge a public sector solution, I didn’t think to justify that assumption much, but I can see now how not doing so might have come across as trollish.
lol1lol 4y ago
while its sleazy to not be forthcoming, I've a feeling in general a private competition is better than a US gov. Sometimes it's hard to create right private marketplaces, and healthcare is one of those areas.
midislack 4y ago
- giarc 4y ago
  TDS?
  - Mountain_Skies 4y ago
    Trump Derangement Syndrome. Not liking Trump or his policies is one thing but people with "TDS" make him a central part of their identity and constantly look for ways to work their hatred of him into every situation.
    - mgkimsal 4y ago
      > ... but people with "TDS" make him a central part of their identity ... What do you call people who make Trump a central part of their identity and constantly look for ways to work their hatred of Biden/Democrats in to every situation?
      - s1artibartfast 4y ago
        MAGA republicans.
      - esotericimpl 4y ago
      - alistairSH 4y ago
        Buttery Males?
  - sparc24 4y ago
    He did put video on the internet though.
  - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
    It's an acronym used by right-wing extremists to describe anyone who disagreed with Trump on his nationalist agenda. Trump Derangement Syndrome.
alistairSH 4y ago
If you're referring to the executive order the previous president issued in Sept 2020, you're only partially correct. Yes, he ordered HHS to research alternative pricing models. But, the statutory ability to do so was granted by the ACA which the administration and party spent the entire term attempting to overturn, taking it as far as SCOTUS. And HHS eventually declined to implement any changes. Summary here... https://www.americanprogress.org/article/little-late-trumps-prescription-drug-executive-order-not-help-patients/ https://www.americanprogress.org/article/little-late-trumps-...

This keeps showing up but it's total bullshit. Cuban wants to take 15% of the transaction for running a web site and processing payment. They're not manufacturing drugs. They're not buying drugs. They're not shipping drugs. They're not doing anything at all besides taking your order and giving it to someone to do all those things. It's not a charity. It's a profitable business and a very profitable one at that. Oh yeah, and the prices aren't lower than what you can get using GoodRX.

lcall 4y ago
From one of those prior discussions, a related nonprofit effort to lower prices of drugs that are sometimes in short supply or overpriced, where the founding Utah hospital system has joined with other hospital systems, has a solid, long-term reputation (and good personal experience--their intake agreement to get a blood sample drawn totaled 2 reasonable pages, where the next-nearest hospital came out at 11) and have generally done friendly good work for a long time as far as I can tell. Wikipedia said (lightly shortened): "Civica Rx is a nonprofit generic drug company founded in 2018 by national philanthropies and leading U.S. health systems[1] to reduce and prevent drug shortages in the United States and the price spikes that can accompany them. .... While serving 55 health systems and 1,500 hospitals (or 1/3 of all licensed U.S. hospital beds), Civica also supplies the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Department of Defense, and “340B” hospitals caring for vulnerable patients in some of the country’s most underserved areas. As of January 2022, Civica provided nearly 70 million vials of essential medicines, enough to treat over 26 million patients across the United States. These numbers continue to grow as Civica moves from a start-up to a well-established societal asset, serving more patients every day. Most recently, eleven of Civica's 55+ medications are being used to help COVID-19 patients, including neuromuscular blocking agents, sedation agents and pain management medications for patients on ventilators." Etc. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civica_Rx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civica_Rx ) https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals-health-systems/drug-prices-healthcare-costs-intermountain-healthcare-civica-rx-generic https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals-health-systems/dr... (thanks to pottertheotter in another HN link/discussion about Mark Cuban, below) https://civicarx.org/ https://civicarx.org/ Other prior discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25932233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25932233 ("The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company" about which I don't know anything more.)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

duxup 4y ago

I can't count how many articles about X company or investor is addressing this issue and I don't think anyone has solved it. I can't find any magic numbers here that explains how the proposal here to replace the "middleman" lowers prices ... by just being another middleman...

lcall 4y ago
I think CivicaRx might be your answer. (See my comment elsewhere on this page, if you Ctrl-F for lcall.)

bayareabadboy 4y ago

Admittedly I don’t know a ton about Mark Cuban, other than he kinda seems like a simpleton. But if he’s able to have a profitable drug company that doesn’t produce drugs that lowers costs for consumers.. Welp that kinda shows that the system is in need of some change. Good on this company for helping that though. Hopefully the clever people in the industry take notice and further improve things.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
MisterBastahrd 4y ago
He's probably just buying them wholesale and setting a fixed profit margin. Color me shocked if it ends up harming independent pharmacists, though... and I say that as someone who thinks universal healthcare is the way to go in the US. Wonder how long before he decides to sell this company to Walmart.
- bearjaws 4y ago
  It's worse than wholesale, its drug drop shipping. This will not save more money than GoodRx.
- gruez 4y ago
  >Color me shocked if it ends up harming independent pharmacists, though Should I care? They're still middlemen at the end of the day.
  - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
    Those of us who have forgotten how Walmart decimated middle America are doomed to repeat it. It's a good thing that people will receive drugs at low prices, but most drug companies have programs to deliver them for low prices anyway. When those local pharmacies die, then large companies will step in and jack up the costs anyway. And if you don't believe that Cuban would sell that company, then you haven't paid attention to his history. The man is many things, but altruistic isn't one of them.

jonathan-adly 4y ago

I totally respect the earned media game. A+ marketing. The actual business (so far) is pretty straight-forward: 1. Call an API to TruePill pharmacy 2. They fill it under the Costplus label and mail it. 3. Cost of drug is acquisition + a small markup that Costplus and Truepill share 4. Display the Truepill API fields in a NEXT.js website I totally respect Truepill operational chops too. Pharmacy is a very tough business. I am waiting for someone to figure out how to break the PBMs pricing-power (monoply-like) control over that business. That would be the true breakthrough. Maybe it would be costplus in a pivot. Or a regulatory change. Also - I deal with CivicaRX in a daily basis. It is a valiant attempt, but they have major shortcomings. FYI: If someone wants an API that really tells how much drug costs. (trust, but verify!) https://data.medicaid.gov/dataset/dfa2ab14-06c2-457a-9e36-5cb6d80f8d93/data?conditions[0][property]=as_of_date&conditions[0][value]=2022-05-25&conditions[0][operator]=%3D https://data.medicaid.gov/dataset/dfa2ab14-06c2-457a-9e36-5c...

tootie 4y ago
User acquisition is a big thing. There are loads of people (including doctors) who lean on brand name drugs when generics are available and it's largely about that brand. Drug names are obscure and drug brands become trusted. If Cuban can successfully build a brand with a lot of awareness then that has the potential to uplift the entire generics market. Even if the actual mechanics of the business are nothing special.
- jonathan-adly 4y ago
  It doesn't quite work like that in pharmacy! 1. Your insurance can and will block certain pharmacies if they got big enough (see PillPack before the Amazon acquisition). They have their own pharmacies and route the most profitable scripts there. 2. You would run into market size limitation if you decide to never accept insurance 3. Getting someone to switch their pharmacy requires major effort on their part - as well as the cooperation of all their doctors. It's almost like switching IT vendors!!
Dan_- 4y ago
Yeah it's all over Reddit too. I can't wait to read all about it in Ad Age and MM+M. It's a good campaign...burnishes Cuban's image while building the brand.

bearjaws 4y ago

This is just drug drop shipping, this will only save you money if you are already using an expensive pharmacy.

josefresco 4y ago
I think you underestimate the number of people who don't realize that "drug drop shipping" is a thing. In the US at least, you go to your doctor, they send your prescriptions to your local pharmacy, and then you hope/pray it's cheap (depending on your insurance) when you go pick it up. There is no discussion of "where" to send them and what is an "affordable" pharmacy vs "expensive". Is my local CVS an "expensive pharmacy"? No clue, but before Cuban's website I didn't even consider that these type of businesses could help lower my drug costs even below what I pay WITH insurance. There's also a huge disconnect between people who occasionally need prescriptions, and those that rely on prescription medication daily. If you get one script a year it probably doesn't matter, but if your disease requires a drug that costs $5K/month, you get very informed, very fast.
- elzbardico 4y ago
  Yeah, this was a shock to me. Never understood the reason for that, TBH. It is more work for the doctor office.
yunohn 4y ago
And in your well informed opinion, what would you say is the ratio of people who use normal pharmacies versus drug drop shipping?
- bearjaws 4y ago
  har har. Except I work in industry, both specialty and retail pharmacies. For any chronic disease (the ones this program benefits most), most doctors will get you setup with the cheapest option for your insurance / PBM. As cost of treatment is the #4 indicator whether people will fall off treatment in the United States[1]. Additionally, in a retrospective study, cost was cited as the main reason for non-adherence in 17% of cases, making it the #3 leading cause[2]. This number is as high as 55% depending on age / demographic... Doctors working in chronic diseases know this and have to deal with it like any other adherence issue. For one off treatments, people usually just go to their grocery store or local pharmacy. Are there patients who are over paying? Absolutely. Is this a cash grab by a multi-billionaire because its not actually addressing the issues resulting in expensive drugs? Absolutely. [1] adherence to refills and medications scale [2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3934668/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3934668/

giantg2 4y ago

Good luck actually being able to use it. The biggest problem I have I being forced into using CVS because the insurance side has merged with the pharmacy side and requires that I use their services for most things. On a side note, the service quality they provide is terrible and they have repeatedly sent me false information regarding my family's prescriptions. The insurance companies are one of the main problems. It sounds like this doesn't solve that.

hkt 4y ago

This is absolutely baffling to me. I live in the UK and was given a non-NHS prescription after a diagnosis for ADHD, and a month's medication is £13. Why are pharmaceuticals in the US so expensive?

kcplate 4y ago
Some are. The latest and greatest are. Generic medications are often inexpensive or free (with insurance). I take 4 regular medications, one has a cost...with my insurance it’s $7 a month ($25 without). 3 are free insurance or not because my grocery/pharmacy provides them for free because the want me to buy their inflated grocery prices instead of going across the road to spend my money at their competitors.
- seanhunter 4y ago
  In the UK for people on low or no incomes or people under or over certain ages all prescription drugs are free and for everyone else they are a fixed charge per item (usually 9.35GBP). This is regardless of whether they are the latest and greatest or a generic. https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/prescriptions-and-pharmacies/nhs-prescription-charges/ https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/prescriptions-and-pharmacies... The US has one of the highest per-capita spends on healthcare in the world[1] for demonstrably poorer health outcomes[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea... and elsewhere [2] eg the CIA factbook all-cause mortality table shows Bangladesh as having about half the mortality rate of the US. https://web.archive.org/web/20201010211308/https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/346.html https://web.archive.org/web/20201010211308/https://www.cia.g...
  - kcplate 4y ago
    So what you are saying is…that my Rx costs are more than 6x lower than what the same medications would cost in the UK. Good to know.

lvl102 4y ago

Mark Cuban is not solving ANYTHING. Can we please stop worshipping billionaires who got extremely lucky during market bubbles? I think Kim Kardashian has a better chance of fixing the drug prices.

Matt_Cutts 4y ago

(Disclosure: I invested in this company at YC back in 2018, when it was Osh’s Affordable Pharmaceuticals) That article is a bit short on details. Some other recent articles I thought were more helpful included https://www.healio.com/news/rheumatology/20220428/mark-cuban-enters-online-prescription-market-nibbling-at-the-edge-of-transparency https://www.healio.com/news/rheumatology/20220428/mark-cuban... and https://www.drugtopics.com/view/the-good-the-bad-and-the-missed-opportunity-of-mark-cuban-cost-plus-drug-company https://www.drugtopics.com/view/the-good-the-bad-and-the-mis... . The second article is written more from the perspective of independent pharmacies. The first article includes this snippet: "If there is reason for optimism, though, it lies with the medical background of Oshmyansky, the company’s co-founder and CEO, according to Gewanter. 'The radiologist Cuban is working with knows the business,' Gewanter said. 'Between the two of them, it is not difficult to imagine that they will figure out where the gaps are and how to exploit them. We can only hope that when they do, our patients will be the beneficiaries.' " I think YC made a fantastic choice including Alex's company in YC, and it's been a pleasure seeing what Alex has done and is doing. I'll stop there for now.

miguelazo 4y ago

So he's doing everything but addressing the root problem, like every other neoliberal grifter. But worse, he's helping perpetuate the myth that the manufacturers aren't the worst actor in all of this. As if they hadn't blocked every reasonable reform that came along. Just like with guns, other countries don't have this problem, for very simple reasons. Why do people keep posting garbage like this?

bumby 4y ago
>for very simple reasons Anyone who claims the solutions to the U.S. healthcare problems are simple doesn't understand the U.S. healthcare system.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- miguelazo 4y ago
  And therein lies the actual problem. Far less complex systems in other countries with similar per capita GDP do not have this issue. And part of the reason they're less complex is because they don't allow a basic human need to be managed by a mostly for-profit system.
  - bumby 4y ago
    Not said with snark, but do you think you're the first person to think the system should be simplified? Do you understand that part of the reason the other systems are more simple is because they effectively rely on the U.S. healthcare system for things like R&D? It's pretty easy to create a simpler system when you can ignore certain aspects because someone else will pick up the slack. The problem with the "simple" solutions is they often assume we start from a blank slate. Acknowledging we're not starting from a clean slate where do you propose we simplify first? And before you reply can you think about 1) how will it be done, including the political aspect and 2) what is the potential unintended blowback from that change?

broberts01 4y ago

Anyone checking out this should also look at GoodRx. Full disclosure, I work at GoodRx. I think we beat them on prices for the most part but it is always good to check theirs too. They beat our prices sometimes. I am all for picking whatever the lowest price is. That is the whole goal.

Riseed 4y ago
If it's not insurance or drop shipping, what does GoodRx do that results in cheaper prescriptions for customers? For awhile, they were saving me $100/mo.
Jcowell 4y ago
I think GoodRx has a marketing problem. I’ve heard of it but I never knew what it does. Just sounds like another pharmacy to me. An ad addressing those would go a long way. Target most sought after drugs and advertise those low prices

kylen 4y ago

There was a reddit thread about this article yesterday and it was filled with people who were suddenly able to find their medication for orders of magnitude cheaper. This meant that for some it made an immediate and significant financial difference to their lives, and for others it meant access to medication they could not previously afford. In some cases reading this article was being described as "life saving". This is very interesting but not because Cuban's business model is unique. It suggests that this group, who are probably a bit more net savvy on average, were not aware of other similar businesses like GoodRX. This implies that there is a highly in demand product (cheap medication) but the problem is awareness, so it's a marketing challenge. Cuban is very well positioned to solve this problem by using his personal brand and tools like these PR articles. This is a good thing! He has the brand, marketing chops and resources to drive it forward. It will increase the size of the market, meaning more people have access to life changing affordable medication. This may spawn more clones of the business model, further increasing the market size, rinse repeat. If this market gets big enough maybe it will apply pressure for change upstream? That would be a great thing. Here on HN we are heavily weighted in our thinking towards the value of product in business (which is normally undervalued) and that is great, but examples like this reveal a real blind spot. Sometimes the value of something like marketing is forgotten or even worse dismissed. But they're extremely powerful tools when used correctly. Apply good marketing to a good product and you have Apple.

lelandfe 4y ago
> were not aware of other similar businesses like GoodRX There are folks in this thread alone finding CostPlus prescriptions for significantly less than GoodRx. Your tone is dismissive - how confident are you that Cuban’s pricing is not actually cheaper, and is just glitz?