Mark Cuban: Mixing Up the Pharmaceutical Landscape

The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co. (CPD) launched in January 2022 to distribute and home deliver prescribed generic medications to consumers. The Texas-based business seeks to reduce the prices of generic drugs by leapfrogging financial negotiators and going straight to drug companies for supply, according to a news release.¹

“It’s crazy that medications are priced the way they are,” investor Mark Cuban told The Rheumatologist. “The pricing process has been distorted by the big incumbents.

Costplusdrugs.com was created to work outside the existing system, bringing transparency and cost plus pricing to patients. We think this will bring about structural change.”

When CPD’s online pharmacy first opened, it had an inventory of 100 generic drugs. Over the following months, that number grew to 1,000 or more, according to recent accounts by company officials.

Customers can visit costplusdrugs.com to find out if their prescription is offered and how much CPD charges for the drug. Anyone who wants to order must provide an email address, and request and obtain a new prescription from “a U.S.-based provider,” before the medication can be mailed, according to the website.²

Price examples of a drug from CPD vs. retail prices at other unnamed companies are posted on the company website. Low prices are maintained by cutting out pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and negotiating directly with drug manufacturers, according to CPD website FAQs.³

“We’re different from your normal drug wholesaler. We think you should know how much your medications cost and why,” states the company on the website.

An example CPD price on its website shows the drug imatinib for leukemia as $39 for 30 tablets (400 mg), compared with a retail price of more than $9,000. GoodRx.com, another online prescription service, lists the same drug price at $119, with a specific pharmacy coupon, compared with an average retail price of $4,430.^2,4

Cash Model

Mark Cuban

Mr. Cuban entered the prescription drug arena to assist businesses that provide medications coverage within their employee benefit plans, according to the news release. The company model is to operate online and offer cash customers prescription medications at 15 percent above wholesale price, plus minimal shipping and labor fees.¹ Plans call for adding insurance as a payment option in the future.

It is as much the cachet as the cash that the billionaire Mr. Cuban brings to the table in the world of PBMs, according to Robert Popovian, PharmD, MS, chief science policy officer for Global Healthy Living Foundation. Other companies, such as Costco, have cash payment models similar to CPD, says the pharmacist who coauthored a white paper with the Schaeffer Center about how consumers overpay for generic medications and the merits of paying with cash.⁵