At WIRED’s “The Massive Interview” occasion earlier this month, Value Plus Medication founder and “Shark Tank” star Mark Cuban was requested why he would 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 might 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 Dealing with Shortages
What Is Value Plus Medication?
Mark Cuban Value 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 Value Plus Medication Value Its Medicines?
On the corporate web site, Cuban outlines how the worth construction works: Value Plus marks the bottom worth up by 15%, after which provides on the precise value that the pharmacy fees them to organize the remedy.
So a drug like Albendazole, for instance, which treats ringworm and prices round $113 elsewhere, based on Medication.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 can not afford primary prescription medicines.”
Associated: How Mark Cuban Pressured the Greatest U.S. Pharmacy to Upend Its Enterprise
What Is a Public Profit Company?
A profit company—also referred to as a B Company—has shareholders who personal the corporate, not like a non-profit. So being profitable 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 wish to generate profits whereas nonetheless serving a better function than itself “and a want for the company to assist make the world a greater place,” based on Rick Bell of Harvard Enterprise Companies.
