Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs is making waves in the pharmacy market, gaining more than 1.2 million customers and selling over 1000 generic low-cost drugs at a fraction of the prescription price that Big Pharma puts on the marketplace. The big question now is whether the supply chain can fundamentally shift toward Cuban’s low-cost model as brand-name drugs resist the shift. Assistant Professor of Epidemiology for the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine at Mayo Clinic, Dr. Jose Medina-Inojosa, breaks down the ripple effects from the Cost Plus Drugs approach to drug product logistics.

Dr. Medina-Inojosa’s Thoughts

“Just to give you a little of context, as we all know, we are probably working in the best healthcare system of the world, but one of the major challenges that we have is access, and specifically prescription access is becoming a major problem in the United States. About 18 million people, about 7% of the whole United States, have a lot of trouble accessing medications and this company is probably gonna help some of the problems. They’re based in Dallas, they’re expanding access, they’re negotiating new deals with drug companies, getting access to generic medications that are about 85% cheaper. Talking about, to give you some example for some leukemia medications, it could take a drug from $2,500 to $14 at Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs, which is extremely exciting.

They’re also working with manufacturing their ordinary prescription medications in Dallas, and I think down the line they’re promising to continue to expand their deals and their reach over the next six or 12 months. So it’s not the major solution to fix all the problems, but I think it’s a really good step in the right direction. And I’m looking forward to see how it will help shape the face of healthcare and how it will help deliver access.”