A billionaire wants to shake up America’s drugs market

one thing guaranteed to get Americans to stand to attention it is cheap Viagra. On June 2nd a firm owned by Mark Cuban, a billionaire investor (as well as a judge on “Shark Tank”, a show for budding entrepreneurs, and the owner of an basketball team), caused a stir by reducing the price of the blue pill—whose patent expired two years ago—from several dollars a pop to 11 cents. It was one of 87 drugs that the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company added to its growing assortment of cheap off-patent medicines. A new study finds that Mr Cuban’s prices might have saved Medicare, a federal health scheme for the elderly, $3.6bn on $9.6bn-worth of drugs it had bought in 2020.