Okay, I’d like to say these articles about his pharmacy are a bit misleading…
1) Let’s be clear, this is a “cash-only” pharmacy, so insurance is not accepted. This is really only useful if your one of the 8% of Americans without health insurance, insurance does not cover your drug (probably unlikely as these are generics), or a few other unique circumstances. It’s also possible that your copay is higher than the cost of the drug, but this isn’t necessarily cheaper.
2) The example from the OP’s article, imatinib- it does not cost $9,657! Gleevec, the brand name version carries that cost, but Cuban is selling a generic. The generic can be had out-of-pocket for $40 already if you know where to look.
3) Many of the cheap medications like Prozac, Lipitor, Lisinopril, etc really are not any cheaper than what can be had using a program like GoodRx, other online mail-order pharmacies, or using an independent pharmacy.
4) It’s kinda strange they have vancomycin listed- vanco is a very, very potent antibiotic. It’s typically not something taken chronically except for C.Diff, otherwise not something you’d want to wait around for to get delivered for an acute infection.
That said, there are a few good deals I found looking through quickly. Imatinib is actually pretty good deal- but it’s a cancer drug… chances are you will have insurance one way or another if you have cancer. Chronic phase cancer meds are often a $0 copay though depending on your plan.
In general I’m not a fan of mail order pharmacies- too many problems with deliveries not coming on time or not receiving the correct amount of meds due to shoddy automation. Less patient-pharmacist interaction too which is a big enough problem with most community pharmacies.
It’s also worth noting cheapest isn’t always the best. Presumably he’s buying from the lowest bidder which is usually drugs from India and China. Not to say they can’t make good drugs, but they’re known for not having the same level of quality control. And depending on the specific drug, the manufacturer can result in clinically different outcomes (particuarly with hormones).
***My question is whether or not these prices will sustain or if this is just an introductory deal to make it seem like they’re doing something significant. Amazon was also supposed to revolutionize drug costs with their pharmacy service… but that ended up being far from the case.
I have a hard time believing they will be able to negotiate prices substantially better than their competitors in the long run. And there is a lot of competition in this space. If this business somehow actually threatened undercutting insurers, the insurers can easily rig the game in their favor- ie reducing copays while increasing premiums. Many have come before and made similar claims of revolutionizing the industry, I have yet to see much success. I guess we’ll see though…