Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban on Wednesday expressed support for President Donald Trump’s executive order on healthcare and drug pricing despite his longstanding opposition to many of the president’s policies.
“Shark Tank” star Mark Cuban, who founded pharmaceutical firm Cost Plus Drugs in 2022 as a public benefit corporation to lower prices for generic drugs, said that the Trump administration executive order released earlier in the week could result in significant savings on prescription drug costs.
“Gotta be honest. The @realDonaldTrump EO on healthcare and in particular, drug pricing could save hundreds of billions,” Cuban wrote in a post on X.
He outlined six policies that he thinks will lead to those savings by changing how drugmakers, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and pharmacies interact to save consumers money on their drugs.
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Cuban said that divorcing formularies from PBMs and requiring independent groups without an economic incentive from the formulary to develop them would end rebates and allow for net pricing of prescription drugs.
He also said that PBMs should be required to provide claims data to employers, states and manufacturers, as it would save manufacturers from having to pay for them and allow them to reduce retail pricing.
Cuban called for ending the specialty tier of drugs and the requirement to buy from a specified pharmacy, saying there’s “nothing special about specialty drugs” and that designation is mainly used to “jack up the price.”
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Additionally, Cuban suggested that all pharmacies should be fully reimbursed for brand drugs and that the generic cost ratio should be eliminated because it “allows distributors to jack up pricing on generics with the threat of chargebacks and more.”
The other policies Cuban advocated for were the removal of confidentiality clauses that prevent companies from talking to manufacturers, which he thinks will lead to better prices and wellness plans for patients, as well as ending biosimilar substitution calls to ensure consumers get the lowest-cost option without PBMs substituting a more expensive version.
“Put me in coach,” Cuban’s post concluded, “I’m here to help.”
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The Trump administration’s executive order directed federal agencies to develop a variety of regulations and reports related to healthcare and prescription drugs, including revisions to the drug price negotiation program under the Inflation Reduction Act and stabilizing Medicare Part D premiums.
It also directed the development of regulations aimed at reducing prices of high-cost drugs for seniors under Medicare, including drugs that aren’t part of the price negotiation program; revising the Medicaid drug payment program; and making life-saving drugs like insulin or injectable epinephrine more affordable.
The executive order calls for reports reevaluating the role of middlemen in the pharmaceutical value chain to boost competition and lower drug prices, making high-cost prescription drugs more competitive, and boosting imports of prescription drugs to lower prices “without sacrificing safety or quality.”
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