AHIP President and CEO Matt Eyles posed a question to Cost Plus Drugs CEO and co-founder Alex Oshmyansky, MD, PhD, on June 13 at the insurance trade group's conference in Portland, Ore.: "Is there a role for Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co. in terms of how you interact with hospitals going forward?"
"Yeah. Perhaps on the manufacturing side of our business, where we're very focused on drug shortage issues," Dr. Oshmyansky said. "These very simple products, like sodium chloride, lidocaine, oncology products — our facility is close to being ready to start manufacturing those products. Cost Plus will reveal to the public what it costs us to set up the facility, what salaries are, component costs, ingredient costs. We'll say, this is what it costs us to actually operate it."
Cost Plus Drugs' new $11 million, 22,000-square-foot pharmaceutical factory is currently under construction in Dallas and is expected to open by the end of 2023. In February, the company said the facility "is intended to provide low-cost versions of traditionally overpriced drugs" and "initial capabilities will include supporting the formulation, filling, and packaging of sterile medicines, with later plans to expand into private label injectables."
"Certainly with some drugs, they spike in price dramatically when they go on shortage. We'll be charging a fair price, a sustainable price, but not price gouging as well," Dr. Oshmyansky said. "In this initial iteration, we're hoping hospitals pass on those savings to patients. But exactly how those dynamics will work is going to be something we're going to work on in the years to come."