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3 years ago · by · 0 comments

Mark Cuban’s Partnership Could Change The Pharmaceutical Market

After Dr. Alex Oshymansky, a radiologist in Dallas, TX started a public-benefit company to combat the exploding prices of certain prescription drugs, he attracted a new partner—Shark Tank billionaire investor Mark Cuban.  Oshymansky started in 2015 with Osh’s Affordable Pharmaceuticals and a million dollars in investment capital. Four years later, the new partnership is moving forward under the name Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drug Co, and donating medicine to those in need.

Mark Cuban has been outspoken about his disdain of the mixture of FDA demands for approval, and drug company greed creating soaring prices for drugs, making them unaffordable to many Americans.   Now under Cuban’s brand name, the private-label arrangement allows Oshymansky to buy from third party suppliers, take care of the labeling and branding laws himself, and sell it at a serious discount with just a 15% mark-up for the business expenses.

This partnership allowed the pair to lower the cost of an anti-parasitic medication called albendazole from its normal U.S. price range of $225-$500, down to just $20.  This proved especially valuable for Baylor College of Medicine, who needed thousands of doses of albendazole to complete a study they were doing on U.S. hookworm infections in the South.

“The Germ of the South,” was a catch-all term that characterized a curious lethargy and haziness of the brain, distended bellies, and emaciated shoulder blades, found across the Deep South during the 20th century. Today, American hookworm still infects large numbers of people, particularly children, due to poor sanitation and poverty.  A study done in Lowndes County, Alabama of 24 homes found that 34% of stool samples contained the parasite, which is killed rather quickly by albendazole.

Cuban and Oshymansky donated the first 10,000 doses of the company’s albendazole supply to Baylor and the author of the study, Dr. Rojelio Mejia, so that volunteers from Alabama to New York who test positive for hookworm could immediately purge the parasite from their bodies.  “We found it deeply troubling that albendazole is extremely expensive in the United States, and are happy to be able to manufacture it for free for this research and provide it at significantly decreased prices to the rest of the U.S. market.”

Other drug companies estimate that the number of doses Cuban and Oshymansky donated would have cost $2 million, an overwhelming cost that would have kept the research from being conducted.  Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs is aiming for 100 new drug offerings by the end of 2021, all with no hidden costs, no middlemen and no rebates only available to insurance companies.  They’re also in the process of constructing their own brick-and-mortar pharmacy in Dallas where they hope to earn a profit on non-pharmaceutical items that can fund the lower cost formulations and offer drugs for rare diseases directly to patients or through outpatient facilities.  If successful, Cuban and Oshymansky’s efforts could force drug companies that continue to overcharge their customers to lower their prices or go out of business.

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