During an interview on the Somebody's Gotta Win With Tara Palmeri podcast, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban warned that the drug company he cofounded, Cost Plus Drugs, would be forced to raise its prices in response to a tariff on goods imported from India.
"We won't have a choice," Cuban said.
Cuban’s company aims to make pharmaceuticals more affordable, with a transparent pricing plan that marks up drug manufacturing costs by 15% and adds a potential pharmacy fee charged by their suppliers (of around $5, plus $5 shipping).
But now those prices might go up if the Trump administration imposes tariffs on India, Cuban said. While Cost Drugs Plus won’t be affected by tariffs on China, Cuban said any potential tariff on goods imported from India would force the company to raise the price of its medications. In that scenario, he said, Cost Plus Drugs would let consumers know that the cost of tariffs and broker fees would be passed onto them “directly,” with no way for the company to “eat” the costs.
The Economic Times reports that the U.S. was India’s largest trading partner from 2021 to 2022 and 2023 to 2024, accounting for about 18% of India's total goods exports, 6.22% of imports, and 10.73% of bilateral trade. The pharmaceutical sector is India’s largest industrial export.
When it comes to medications in particular, BBC reported that India supplies nearly half of all generic medicines—cheaper versions of brand-name drugs—taken in the U.S., which helps the U.S. save money on health care costs. Indian generic drugs saved the U.S. $219 billion in 2022 alone, according to a study by consulting firm IQVIA.
That same study found that four out of 10 of all prescriptions filled in the U.S. in 2022 were supplied by Indian companies, and of the top 10 therapy areas, by prescription volume, Indian companies supplied more than half of the prescriptions for these five: hypertension, mental health, lipid regulators, nervous system disorders, and antiulcerants.
In 2023, India charged a weighted average tariff of about 11%, around 8.2 percentage points higher than U.S. tariffs on Indian exports, according to Citi Research analysts cited in Reuters. Trump’s reciprocal tariffs are slated to take effect on April 2, while India works to come to a trade deal with the U.S. to avoid the economic hit.
"If you only have a 15% markup and there's a 25% tariff, we'd have to lose money on every single medication," Cuban told Palmeri.
For more on the pharmaceutical industry:
- Patients will pay more for prescription meds and face drug shortages amid Trump tariffs, pharma groups warn
- Gen Z’s expensive drug habit: More want brand-name meds that are 79% more expensive
- Mark Cuban once helped his college friend save almost $10,000 on prescriptions after a ‘horrific car accident’
