The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company will begin manufacturing its own medications in Texas this week, cofounder and CEO Dr. Alex Oshmyansky announced Monday during a White House roundtable on lowering health care costs.
“Cost Plus Drugs is proudly bringing pharmaceutical manufacturing back to the U.S., with advanced robotic and AI computer vision technology,” Oshmyansky said. “That allows us to pivot from making one drug type to another very rapidly—in principle, within four hours.
“That way, whatever product is in shortage, we can start making that product.”
The company, which Oshmyansky launched in January 2022 alongside billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, will first manufacture commercial batches of epinephrine, which is used in EpiPens, and norepinephrine, which is used to increase and maintain blood pressure, for hospital patients in intensive care. Oshmyansky didn’t mention specific dates, only that production of these two drugs would begin “this week,” followed “shortly after” by pediatric oncology drugs.
“No parent should be told the chemotherapy their child needs is not available,” Oshmyansky said. “Nobody should not get the lifesaving ICU medications they need or have to postpone their surgery because the common, cheap medications are just not available in the United States in the year 2024.”
Cost Plus Drugs’ 22,000-square-foot pharmaceutical facility in Dallas’s Deep Ellum neighborhood originally had been slated for completion in late 2022. Just as important as the drugs themselves is the way in which they’re produced, Oshmyansky said: without middlemen.
White House roundtable talks pharmaceutical middlemen
The subject of intermediary pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, dominated discussion during the White House roundtable Monday afternoon. Cuban was also in attendance, along with public and private leaders including Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Sandra Clarke, COO of Blue Shield of California.
PBMs, Cuban said, have been “shitting on independent pharmacies,” among other tactics that take advantage of the most vulnerable patients and “put stock price over health.”
Fortune reached out to the so-called Big Three PBMs—CVS Caremark, Cigna’s Express Scripts, and UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx—for comment. Optum Rx referred Fortune to the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA), a trade organization representing PBMs. PCMA spokesperson Greg Lopes tells Fortune in an email statement: “Mr. Cuban’s comments were unfortunate and not an accurate representation of our industry. To be clear, pharmacy benefit companies recognize the vital role pharmacies play to create access to prescription drugs for patients. In fact, PBMs support rural pharmacies through innovative programs that increase reimbursements and allow rural pharmacists to spend more time with patients. We believe a strong relationship between PBMs and all pharmacies means a better experience and more affordability for patients, which is our shared priority.”
David Joyner, president of CVS Caremark and executive vice president of CVS Health, which is a sponsor of Fortune WELL, says in an email statement: “PBMs are built to do three things: make medicine more affordable, ensure safe use, and help drive broad access. That is exactly what payers and consumers want. Whether we are innovating to create more transparency with our TrueCost solution, putting in place utilization management that improves the use and affordability of drugs like GLP-1s, or designing tailored pharmacy networks, to drive access and value, we are laser-focused on helping as many people as possible get access to the medicines they need to stay healthy.
“Local, independently owned pharmacies serve as vital partners in our pharmacy networks. They are essential to ensuring consumers can conveniently access needed medications. On average across our national network, we reimburse independent pharmacies at a higher rate than larger regional and national chains, including CVS Pharmacy.”
Express Scripts didn’t respond by deadline.
Cost Plus Drugs is grounded in the simplicity of buying drugs and selling them directly to consumers at low, transparent costs, Cuban stressed. The online retailer now carries 2,500 medications and plans to offer as many as legally possible.
PBMs work with pharmaceutical wholesalers to set up so-called source programs, which control 90% of drug purchasing in the U.S., Oshmyansky explained, noting that Cost Plus Drugs will be as open about its manufacturing costs as it is about the prescriptions it currently sells.
“That way, we are profitable and sustainable,” Oshmyansky said, “but never extortionate.”
For more on the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co.:
- Mark Cuban once helped his college friend save almost $10,000 on prescriptions after a ‘horrific car accident’
- Mark Cuban’s $141K mistake: The Cost Plus Drugs cofounder says CEOs don’t understand health care coverage, and it’s costing them big
- Mark Cuban: “There’s nobody who looks at the health care system or the pharmaceutical industry and says ‘wow, that’s well run’”
- A doctor says a patient saved over $1,000 a month by ordering prescriptions through Mark Cuban’s online pharmacy
- Mark Cuban has been taking on the drug industry. But which one?
