From Mark Cuban's CostPlusDrugs to Good AI, how healthcare can finally be made accessible to all
When it is an industry ( pharmaceutical ) that impacts everybody, every family, you get a chance to fuck it up, why wouldn’t you?
Mark Cuban on why he started Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, PBC
I attended Mark Cuban’s ( Shark Tank, Dallas Mavericks ) fireside chat event at the ICON - Israel Collaboration Network last month. Interviewed by Yasmin Lukatz ( Founder & Executive Director at ICON ), Mark took us from his early days of entrepreneurial hustle to his monumental impact on tech, sports, and beyond. From revolutionizing US healthcare to his candid takes on DEI ( Diversity Equity Inclusion ), the evening is just utmostly inspirational.
Mark Cuban’s CostPlus mission of lowering drug costs
Because the industry is so opaque, people got away with charging whatever they wanted to charge until we came along
Mark Cuban on the lack of pricing transparency in the pharma industry
Prescription drug prices remain out of reach for many Americans, who pay among the highest prices in the world. Contributing to these high prices is the complicated supply chain comprising multiple parties who negotiate, sell, and provide rebates for the drugs.
Among these parties are the PBMs ( Pharmacy Benefits Managers ) who manage prescription drug benefits on behalf of health insurers and large employers. As the middlemen, PBMs use their purchasing powers to negotiate rebates and discounts from drug manufacturers. PBMs tend to keep a percentage of the rebates and do not always pass the savings to the consumers. Without any need for price disclosure, PBMs are incentivized to negotiate higher drug prices so that they can earn more from the rebates.
To circumvent these inflated drug costs, CostPlus cuts out third-party PBMs by making itself a cash-only pharmacy where no health insurance plans are allowed. By negotiating directly with the drug manufacturers, CostPlus can sell the drugs at a much lower price than they would have been under a PBM/insurance plan
Announcing Good AI’s Avengers Team
Good AI’s team photo taken at 2024 JPM ( From the left: Darwin Ling, Charles Wang, Daniel Kwan )
As we have written about the extreme price tags ( $2.2 million for Casgevy, $3.1 million for Lyfgenia ) for the two recently approved gene therapies for Sickle Cell Disease, Good AI is acutely aware of the high drug costs problem in the US. Sharing Mark Cuban’s mission of making healthcare more accessible, Good AI aims to invest in companies that can change the landscape by integrating the latest advances in AI, Synthetic Biology, Genetic Editing, Digital Health, and Precision Medicine.
On this note, I am incredibly excited to announce that Charles Wang ( early engineer at Palantir, part of its IPO ) and Daniel Kwan, MD ( ER physician, Telehealth Fellow at Doximity ) have joined Good AI. They will be serving as part of the Good AI core investment team.
On the advisor front, I am very honored to have recruited Utkan Demirci ( Stanford Radiology, Canary Center for Cancer Early Detection ). Professor Demirci will be joining our roster of esteemed advisors including Jed Kay ( ex-COO of Eli Lilly ) and Leslie Bottorf ( GE Healthcare, GE Ventures, Medtronic )
If you are a startup that is committed to 1) improving supply chain efficiency, 2) streamlining clinical trials, 3) speeding up drug discovery and 4) incentivizing both payors and providers to deliver value-based outcomes, we would love to hear from you.
Join us on this journey to finally making healthcare accessible to all!