Mark Cuban and Cost Plus Drugs chief executive officer Alex Oshmyansky say the company plans to use its manufacturing facility to produce custom-made medicines for rare diseases. STAT reports that this strategic shift would move the company beyond its original model of buying generic drugs and reselling them at a 15% markup while bypassing pharmacy benefit managers.
Cuban and Oshmyansky state that the plant is capable of quickly switching between small batches of different drugs. They believe this flexibility could allow the company to create experimental treatments for individual patients or very small groups. STAT describes this move as a bold swing for a business that started by focusing on lower-cost generic resales.
In a separate development, Reuters reports that the Sandoz factory in Kundl, Austria, faces an uncertain future. Located in the green foothills of the Austrian Alps, this site is the last fully integrated European penicillin plant. It is the only facility in Europe that produces penicillin from start to finish, including the key active ingredients.
Chinese manufacturers are now producing the same antibiotics and ingredients at much lower costs for the European market. Reuters notes that these falling prices benefit cost-conscious European governments and their public health care programs. However, the price pressure poses an existential threat to the Kundl site.