The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Company (MCCPDC) is a registered pharmaceutical wholesaler and purchases drugs directly from manufacturers, bypassing middlemen to lower the price of more than 100 medications, it said in a statement.
For example, the leukemia drug imatinib is priced at $47 a month on MCCPDC compared to the $9,657 retail price.
MCCPDC CEO Alex Oshmyansky reached out to Cuban with an idea for a low-cost generic drug company in a cold email. It was launched in January last year. They were motivated in part by “Pharma Bro” Martin Shrkeli’s outrage-producing price hike of the lifesaving drug Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per tablet while Shrkeli was CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals. Cuban told Forbes last year the pricing for generic drugs was “ridiculous.” He said he decided to put his name on the company to “show capitalism can be compassionate and to send the message I am all in.” It’s not clear how much he had invested in the company.
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Reblog to save someone an entire paycheck, or more, on the pharmaceuticals they need.
Gods, I want this to be true so badly.
It is true. Mark Cuban is doing this in part because he wants to run for President in 2024 if Biden doesn’t run again (Mark ran in 2020). He’s a Democrat and “I personally made medication affordable” will give him an immense edge. He’s far from perfect but this is a good thing he’s doing. Also he seems to genuinely believe this stuff, but either way, site’s up and operational and you can start any time.
just so people understand what a big deal this is, i ran some fast price comparisons. goodrx is an app that offers discounts on medications for which you have to pay out of pocket, whether because your insurance doesn’t cover them or because you don’t have insurance. if you don’t have insurance, goodrx is often about as good as it gets, so i’m using their prices for my comparison.
please note that prices are location dependent on goodrx—it shows you the options at pharmacies near your location. i’m in pittsburgh, pa; if you’re in a different part of the country and you try this, you may get slightly (or wildly) different numbers.
fluoxetine is generic prozac. thirty 20mg capsules costs $12.80 at my cheapest local pharmacy. costplus has it for $3.90.
atorvastatin is generic lipitor. thirty 40mg tablets is $10.95 at my cheapest local pharmacy. costplus has it for $4.20.
omeprazole is generic prilosec. thirty 20mg capsules is $13.90 at the cheapest local pharmacy; $4.20 at costplus.
aripiprazole is generic abilify. thirty 10mg tablets is $17.73 at the cheapest local pharmacy (and $260.60 at the most expensive—and that’s with a discount, still, yikes); $6.00 at costplus.
lamotrigine xr is generic lamictal xr. thirty 25mg tablets is $36.59 at the cheapest local pharmacy; $8.40 at costplus.
maybe that doesn’t seem like a huge discount, but the goodrx prices change *all the time*—last time i used it to buy fluoxetine, which was in the last couple of years, it was $31. also, many people are on multiple medications, or have multiple people in a household taking multiple medications, and $5 off every prescription adds up real fast.
this is an objectively fantastic thing and a huge deal, and i hope they’re wildly successful.
as capitalism continues to decay, expect the role of celebrities in producing and spreading capitalist-imperialist propaganda to become more and more prominent
Everyone in the notes saying “they’re so stupid” / “they’re just idiot celebrities” etc. - they’re not stupid or incompetent. They’re bourgeoisie professionals who are doing a job for their class and doing it well. This is their role in the political economy. It’s not an aberration or them speaking about shit they don’t understand. They understand what they’re doing perfectly well.
What it meant to be a woman in many African pre-colonial societies was not rigid. “Among the Langi of northern Uganda,” writes Sylvia Tamale, dean of the faculty of Law at Makerere University Uganda, “the mudoko dako, or effeminate males, were treated as women and could marry men.” There were also the Chibados or Quimbanda of Angola, male diviners whom, some scholars have argued, were believed to carry female spirits through anal sex.
[…]
This practice of same-sex marriage was documented in more than 40 precolonial African societies: a woman could marry one or more women if she could secure the bridewealth necessary or was expected to uphold and augment kinship ties. The idea that a female could be a husband perplexed Europeans, and often lead to fantastical conclusions.
Wanted to share an article about pre-colonial African gender identities! The article is really great!
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