How Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company Is Approaching Drug Pricing Transparency

At the Summer 2024 Total Pharmacy Solutions Summit, held virtually on July 13, 2024, Erin Albert, vice president of pharmacy relations and chief privacy officer at Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, PBC, (Cost Plus Drugs) led a keynote discussion exploring all the benefits her company offers.

In the session, titled “Taking Care of Transparency in Drug Pricing, So Pharmacy Can Take Care of Patients: An Update on Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, PBC,” Albert discussed how pharmacies and the individuals who operate them can reclaim revenue and focus more on providing valued care for their patients.

Erin Albert is the Vice President of Pharmacy Relations and Chief Privacy Officer at Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, PBC. | image credit: Creative Habits / stock.adobe.com

Read on for some key takeaways from Albert’s presentation:

• One of the main components of why Cost Plus Drugs is so disruptive within the pharmaceutical supply chain is its transparent 15% markup. “We add our 15%.... We want to make it easy for the consumer to find the drugs they need, know exactly what their medication costs are, and be able to track their orders,” she said.
• Cost Plus Drugs is a public benefit corporation (PBC). Because consumers commonly attach themselves to companies that focus on sustainability and are mission driven—especially Gen Z individuals—the company’s PBC alignment significantly stands out. The company focuses on 3 things: people, planet, and profit.
• One of the key drivers of the Cost Plus Drugs business model is the Team Cuban Card. Customers can join the Team Cuban Card network of nearly 7000 pharmacies to find their medication and pharmacy, request a prescription, and show the pharmacy their card. They also have the chance to see where every single dollar is going, owing to the transparency behind what is making the model so disruptive. “One of my favorite things about working on the Team Cuban Card is you get the best of all worlds. You get our pricing, you get transparency, and you get to keep your local pharmacy, provided that they’re in our network,” Albert said.
• Although the entire pharmacy industry is experiencing setbacks, it’s independent pharmacies and their pharmacists who are struggling with keeping their stores open. Albert discussed the company’s passion for boosting the business of independent pharmacies across the country. Without independent pharmacies in the Cost Plus Drugs network of pharmacies, the business model is not executable.
• “We call ourselves an un-PBM [pharmacy benefit manager], meaning we are transparent about what we’re doing. We don’t have a drug formulary; we have a drug list, and we will sell—as Mr. Cuban has said—any drug that we are legally allowed to sell that is FDA approved,” she said. The company’s perspective of setting itself apart from the supply chain control of major PBMs is exactly how it’s reinforcing transparency within its business model.
• Cost Plus Drugs is operating across multiple lines of business. The first is as a virtual wholesaler and manufacturer, which is required for the company to be able to do compounding. Its next line of business is the Cost Plus Drugs 503B sterile fill-finish facility. The company is also serving as a business-to-business marketplace for other companies to reap the benefits of Cost Plus Drugs’ growth. Finally, through the Team Cuban Card and the costplusdrugs.com website, it is serving as a direct-to-consumer site, giving patients their medications without having to jump through various hoops to receive care.

As Albert pointed out, the cost-plus pharmacy model is not new, but as entities within the drug supply chain introduced rebates, formularies, and other hurdles, the cost-plus model has returned as a viable but disruptive option within today’s marketplace. As scrutiny toward rising drug costs persists, with the federal government struggling to regulate the market, companies like Cost Plus Drugs will become more familiar to patients across the US.

“If you join our network, you can worry less about pricing, because you know you’re going to get the best price for your patient. You can get back to doing what you love and what you were trained to do: serve the patients clinically,” she said.

Read more articles from the Total Pharmacy October 2024 issue and visit drugtopics.com/TPSSSummer2024 to watch all the Total Pharmacy Solutions Summit sessions on demand.

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