Cuban: Drugmakers Are More Afraid of PBMs Than Trump

Jun 26
Jun 26, 2025

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban, speaking at a Washington, D.C., conference on June 24, said the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co. can’t fully disrupt the pharmacy benefits space because the country’s three biggest PBMs have too much leverage over drug manufacturers.

“I’ve talked to eight, nine of the major [pharmaceutical] brands and the question always is, ‘Why doesn’t Cost Plus Drugs carry more brands?’” Cuban said during the inaugural conference held by Transparency-Rx, a coalition of smaller PBMs that support industry reform.
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Leslie Small

Leslie has been working in journalism since 2009 and reporting on the health care industry since 2014. She has covered the many ups and downs of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the failed health insurer mega-mergers, and hundreds of other storylines spanning subjects such as Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored insurance, and prescription drug coverage. As the managing editor of Health Plan Weekly and Radar on Drug Benefits, she writes and edits for both publications while overseeing a small team of reporters who also focus on the managed care sector. Before joining AIS Health, she was a senior editor for the e-newsletter Fierce Health Payer, and she started her career as a copy editor at multiple local newspapers. She graduated with a dual degree in journalism and political science from Penn State University.