Mark Cuban Looks to Bring Price Transparency to Drug Pricing, Disrupt PBM Industry 

By Consumers for Quality Care, on September 11, 2024

The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company (Cost Plus), founded by billionaire investor Mark Cuban, is looking to disrupt the health care industry, particularly focused on pharmacy benefit managers’ outsized influence on inflated drug prices, according to Fierce Healthcare.  

Cost Plus engages directly with drug manufacturers, with no middlemen involved. Cost Plus puts just a 15 percent markup on each prescription as its profit margin, plus a flat $5 shipping fee and $3 handling fee. Unlike PBMs, Cuban takes pride in disclosing the prices they charge for medications, showing consumers exactly how much their prescriptions cost. “Prior to us, there was no transparency whatsoever and so nobody knew what the price of any medication was,” said Cuban. 

Just two years after its launch, Cost Plus now sells about 2,500 generic drugs. The effect Cost Plus is having on the drug market is already benefiting consumers. As an example, Cuban cited a chemotherapy drug: Most pharmacies sell it for $2,000, but Cost Plus sells it directly to consumers for less than $30. 

In particular, Cuban is going after the three largest PBMs – CVS Caremark, UnitedHealth Group’s Optum Rx and Cigna’s Express Scripts – which control most of the drug prescription market. “There’s no reason for the big ones that control 90% of the prescriptions that are filled, there’s no reason for them to exist.” Cuban also commended the Federal Trade Commission’s recent report which found that PBMs increase their profit by using their market power to increase the cost of vital medications for consumers, as well as push patients to use their own specialty pharmacies to fill prescriptions, driving business away from independent pharmacies.   

CQC supports innovative cost-cutting measures like these that will save patients money at the pharmacy counter. PBMs, if left unchecked, will continue using anticompetitive business practices that drive up costs, limit consumers’ access to drugs, and force independent pharmacies to shut their doors. CQC urges lawmakers and regulators to continue scrutinizing PBMs and ensure access to high-quality affordable care for all consumers.