Two brand name medications have been added to the list of drugs for sale at Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs, the generic cash drug buying platform, possibly opening up brand-name drug purchases from this source.
The medications, both made by the Bayer company, are Yaz, the contraceptive, and Climara, an estrogen patch for menopause.
Yaz will cost $42.45 for one 28-tab monthly pack of 3-0.02 mg pills, according to the site. The generic is $12.45 on the site. Climara will cost $53.30 for four weekly patches delivering .06 mg of estradiol per day. The generic estradiol sells at Mark Cuban for $36.05 for a box of four weekly patches of .06 mg per day.
On GoodRx, this amount of brand-name Yaz can be purchased for $48.94. or $59.44 and up, but of course your insurance price might be considerably lower. Brand-name Climara costs as little as $54.67 and up on GoodRx for this prescription.
The news here is not the price, but the fact that that Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs has previously dealt only in generic medications, and these two new medications are both brand name drugs, manufactured by a big, established company, Bayer.
We have previously reported about how much money people can save on generic medications by going not through their insurance, but directly to Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs.
Many people think their insurance premiums give them access to the lowest prices for prescriptions and procedures, but that is far from universally true. I’ve found that my insurance gives me a price of $68 for a common prescription, olmesartan with HCTZ, which I can buy for $10 for cash at Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs. Or another prescription, lisinopril — it would cost $56.55 at my drugstore with insurance, but $13.60 on cash at Mark Cuban Cost Plus.
New distribution paths
But Cost Plus doesn’t carry brand name drugs, only generics. What’s interesting is that with this move, Bayer has signaled that it is interested in exploring distribution channels for its brand name drugs that do not include the traditional pathways, using pharmacy benefit managers (PBM’s) and group purchasing organizations (GPO’s) and the whole insurance system. The insurers, of course, also take a cut when a medication is purchased via insurance.
Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs says it will charge whatever the cost of the generic is, plus a 15% markup, plus whatever shipping you choose — standard or speedy. This means your money is not going to the middlemen mentioned above.
The benefit to the purchaser is not that clear. Under the Affordable Care Act, birth control pills are usually covered without any copay if the drugstore is in the insurance plan’s network. But some plans may only cover the generic, and some people prefer brand-name drugs.
Bayer said that it was experimenting here and would be considering the possibility of selling other medications through Mark Cuban Cost Plus drugs.
NPR reported: “‘As I look at our partnership with Cost Plus, I really look at this as a test and learn,’ says Sebastian Guth, president of U.S. Pharmaceuticals at Bayer. ‘It’s a first initial step. We will learn and see what the results of this partnership are and may then decide to expand it further.'”
It’s well known that in big pharma, there are all sorts of hidden inducements, including rebates to PBM’s, administrative fees, markups, and so on.
It remains to be seen if other manufacturers, like Bayer, will decide that the Cost Plus route is a useful one for them, and why. But it is certainly interesting that Bayer has chosen to do this with two popular drugs. Yaz is one of the top 10 birth-control pills prescribed in the U.S. every year.
