When Debbie Rhodes was diagnosed with terminal blood and bone marrow cancer nine years ago, her husband Randy never expected a billionaire entrepreneur to come to their rescue. The 50-year-old from Leawood, Kansas, was prescribed imatinib, a drug that manages chronic myeloid leukemia and extends life by a decade or more. Initially covered by insurance, the couple later faced a crisis when a new policy excluded the medication.
Randy, an attorney, discovered that the out-of-pocket cost for a monthly supply ranged from $13,000 to $15,000 (£10,400 to £12,000). 'When we learned it wasn’t going to be covered, there was a little bit of shock and concern,' he told The Independent. 'We were blessed to be in a situation where we could’ve swung it, but it would’ve been a liquidating event over many years.'
After days of searching, Randy found Cost Plus Drugs, an online pharmacy founded in 2022 by Mark Cuban, former owner of the Dallas Mavericks. The company negotiates directly with manufacturers, cutting out insurers and middlemen. It charges a 15% markup plus modest fees. The price for a 30-day supply of imatinib: $39.75 (£31.80).
The itemised breakdown showed $25.65 for manufacturing, $3.85 for Cost Plus, $5 for labour and $5.25 for shipping. The retail price elsewhere was $9,657.30. 'She broke down into tears,' Randy recalled of telling his wife. 'I can’t even begin to articulate my emotions.'
Imatinib, the generic form of Novartis's Gleevec, has been available since its patent expired in 2015. Cost Plus Drugs aims to bring transparency to drug pricing, which Cuban described as 'as opaque as possible' to prevent good healthcare decisions.
