Mark Cuban is making a bold move!
An ambitious plan has been outlined by the billionaire entrepreneur to take on Big Pharma and reduce prescription drug costs.
Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs is the new pharmaceutical company he’s launching to address skyrocketing prescription prices.
Around 350 different generic medications are available at steep discounts through Cost Plus Drugs, which was launched nine months ago.
A few examples: Generic Crestor, a cholesterol-lowering med, costs $151 a month at the local CVS, a steep discount from the brand-name pill, which runs $329. Cuban sells it for $4.80. Ditto Glucophage, a diabetes drug. The generic sells for $20 at CVS, versus $3.90 at Cost Plus. Or there’s the generic version of antidepressant Zoloft, which is $50 at CVS but $4.20 at Cost Plus.
He can offer such low prices because he bypasses the pharma industry’s many middlemen, such as pharmacy benefit managers, who negotiate prices. (Visit CVS Caremark to see how much money it generated in 2021.)
Instead, Cuban buys directly from the folks who manufacture the pills, paying them just enough to make it worth their while, then sells them online at a fixed markup of 15%, plus $8 for shipping and fees. A concept like this isn’t entirely new; it has been around for quite some time. Walmart and Costco are experimenting with similar models.
However, Cuban is quickly gaining traction, perhaps due to his celebrity. according to Forbes, Cost Plus sold at least $25 million in its first nine months. Cost Plus Drugs already claims more than a million customers and says it is growing at a rate of about 10% each week, on track to be profitable in 2023. Cuban is uncharacteristically tight-lipped about revenue;
Having put his name on the company for the first time, Cuban has invested close to $100 million and says he’s ready to spend “whatever it takes.” It is, in his own words, “legacy-defining. If we get this right, this will be the most impactful thing I’ve ever done.”
Cost Plus Drugs is his priority, and he plans to pull back from other projects. There is even a possibility that he might leave Shark Tank. “Part of me wants to quit,” he says. He’s not worried about whether the show will sink or swim. “They’ll survive fine without me.”
Now, I am a fan of Shark Tank, and I consider this move a bold move, but one filled with compassion and heart! Long before I became a sales trainer and coach, I worked in the insurance industry. I literally witnessed client after client that had to choose between life-saving medicine or paying the electric bill. I was stunned and saddened at the state of their life, all because prescription medicine had become so expensive for them.
I can’t personally speak for Cuban, but I feel certain he has compassion as a driving force of his ambition with this venture.
This could be a great time to ask yourself, and maybe even your team, what really drives us. Maybe it’s a corporate mission, or maybe just a personal mission for each person involved, but either way a true mission or purpose beyond the income itself is often the key needed to actually drive revenue.