Mark Cuban's online pharmacy Cost Plus Drugs has added Bayer's oral contraceptive pill Yaz to its list of discounted drugs.
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Mark Cuban's online pharmacy Cost Plus Drugs has added Bayer's oral contraceptive pill Yaz to its list of discounted drugs.
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Bayer is the latest big-name drug company to enter the world of Mark Cuban's online pharmacy, Cost Plus Drugs.
This website offers medications at deep discounts without going through a middleman called a pharmacy benefit manager.. We primarily sell generic drugs, but we are gradually adding branded products as well.
Both Yaz's contraceptive pill and Climara, a hormone patch for menopause, will be available at a fraction of the list price, including CostPlus' standard 15% markup and shipping.
“Given our partnership with Cost Plus, we really see this as a test and a learning experience,” said Sebastian Gass, president of Bayer's U.S. pharmaceuticals. “This is a first step. We will learn and see what the outcome of this partnership will be before we may decide to expand further.”
All of these branded drugs are off-patent and subject to competition from generic drugs, including within Cost Plus, where generic drugs are even cheaper than discounted name brand options. But Gass said women often pay for both of these drugs out of pocket without insurance coverage. And they often prefer to use brand names over available generic drugs.
The partnership with Cost Plus will expand access for patients, he said.
Health insurance usually covers contraception
But the benefits of the new arrangement for patients are unclear, said Laurie Sobel, associate director of women's health policy at the nonprofit KFF.
Under the Affordable Care Act, oral contraceptives like Yaz are generally covered without a copay as long as the pharmacy and health care provider are in your insurance plan's network, but some plans may cover generic contraceptives. It may only cover.
But not everyone knows that.
“We know from a 2022 study that about 40% of women don't realize it,” Sobel says. “So there's a knowledge gap of who knows if they're going to be covered if they use their insurance.”
In fact, Yaz is in the top 10 oral contraceptives people pay for despite the Affordable Care Act's provisions. “And we also know that it's highly promoted…Yaz was the most promoted brand,” she said, citing a study by researchers at Harvard University. .
So even though Yaz's list price is $515, and CostPlus costs $117 for three months, it would still be much cheaper to get the generic with insurance without paying out-of-pocket.
Some consumers prefer to pay in cash
A spokesperson for Cost Plus Drugs said in an email to NPR that most of the company's business comes from customers who skip insurance and pay cash, but the number of users who buy insurance that includes Cost Plus wrote that the number is “increasing rapidly.”
If you pay cash, Climara is also much cheaper on cost plus, at $53 instead of the list price of $76.
These higher list prices do not take into account the amount that drug companies would actually receive if they purchased the drug through insurance under normal circumstances.
An intermediary called a pharmacy benefits manager also takes a cut, leaving the drug company with the net price.
Richard Evans, general manager of SSR Health, a pharmaceutical industry veteran, said his company probably doesn't make more money through CostPlus than it does with regular insurance.
Gass declined to share the net price of Yaz or Climara.
Mark Cuban's pharmacy could boost drug sales. It will likely take several months to see how the experiment works.
