The Company You Keep

At ApexEdge, our mission is to help U.S. consumers realize meaningful savings on their monthly bills and we are proud of the real-world results that we’ve been able to generate. Just this month, Tearsheet released a case study of our work with Intuit and how together, we have saved Mint customers almost $2 million to date (be sure and look for a more detailed commentary on our work with Intuit in a future blog post).

This commitment to helping consumers save more of their money is what led Mark Cuban to become an early investor in ApexEdge’s Billshark, and it is a relationship that we are very proud of. Recently, you may have seen that Mark is taking that same passion about leveraging technology to improve consumers’ financial health and he’s applying it to the world of prescription drugs through his new startup venture, Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company.

The prescription drug industry is one that is ripe for innovation. A 2021 RAND Study reported that U.S. consumers pay, on average, 244 percent more for prescription drugs than citizens from other developed nations, and even generic options offer little relief as Americans still pay 84 percent more than their counterparts in the rest of the developed world.

Enter Mark Cuban.

Through MCCPDC, a generic leukemia drug called Imatinib that usually retails for more than $2500 for 30 100mg tablets is now available for just $17.10 (yes, you read that number correctly), a price based on a simple 15 percent markup beyond the cost of manufacturing. For users of Imatinib, this represents a savings of more than 99 percent!

Through its direct-to-consumer model, and by negotiating directly with drug manufacturers, MCCPDC offers prescription medicines at wholesale cost plus a 15 percent markup, a $3 pharmacy labor charge and just $5 for shipping. In doing so, Mark is looking to bring greater levels of customer convenience and transparency in pricing to an industry that for decades has been characterized by the opposite.

Here’s to hoping that MCCPDC is wildly successful and creates the market demand needed to help consumers gain more affordable access to the medicine they rely on.