At WIRED’s “The Huge Interview” occasion earlier this month, Price Plus Medicine founder and “Shark Tank” star Mark Cuban was requested why he does not make extra revenue at his low-price drug firm.
“You are fairly clear that you’re not doing this for altruistic causes — you are operating a enterprise,” famous the occasion moderator.
“Nicely, I may earn more money,” Cuban stated, to laughs within the crowd. “We’re a public profit company. However how a lot f—ing cash do I would like?”
“I am not attempting to go to Mars,” he added, with an apparent dig at his billionaire rival Elon Musk.
Associated: Mark Cuban’s Startup Is Sending Its First Batch of Important Meds to Hospitals Going through Shortages
What Is Price Plus Medicine?
Mark Cuban Price Plus Drug Co. is a web based pharmacy co-founded by Cuban and radiologist Alex Oshmyansky to disrupt the pharmaceutical business and decrease drug prices. It launched in January 2022 and gives greater than 2,300 prescription medicines and supply.
How Does Price Plus Medicine Value Its Drugs?
On the corporate web site, Cuban outlines how the value construction works: Price Plus marks the bottom worth up by 15%, after which provides on the precise price that the pharmacy expenses them to organize the medicine.
So a drug like Albendazole, for instance, which treats ringworm and prices round $113 elsewhere, in response to Medicine.com, is $35, as per the letter. (Cuban wrote that the corporate paid $26.08.)
“Many individuals are spending loopy quantities of cash every month simply to remain wholesome,” Cuban wrote. “No American ought to must undergo or worse – as a result of they cannot afford fundamental prescription medicines.”
Associated: How Mark Cuban Compelled the Greatest U.S. Pharmacy to Upend Its Enterprise
What Is a Public Profit Company?
A profit company—also called a B Company—has shareholders who personal the corporate, in contrast to a non-profit. So earning profits is the purpose, simply not the entire level.
Whereas non-profits (or not-for-profits) serve a public profit and do not make any income, profit companies need to earn money whereas nonetheless serving a higher goal than itself “and a want for the company to assist make the world a greater place,” in response to Rick Bell of Harvard Enterprise Companies.