Mark Cuban is famous for a lot of things, but in healthcare his authority has one source: he names the middlemen. Cost Plus Drugs, the pharmacy he co-founded, is the proof he can point to, because it publishes a simple formula in a business where prices usually are not simple.
The more interesting chapter is recent. The man who built a brand on attacking pharmacy intermediaries has started plugging that brand into the channels that surround them.
The formula that made the brand
Cost Plus Drugs launched its online pharmacy in January 2022. Wikipedia’s summary of the company describes a public benefit corporation based in Dallas, co-founded by Cuban and radiologist Alex Oshmyansky, who is founder and CEO. It says Cuban has described Oshmyansky’s 2018 “cold pitch” for a pharmacy that would make generics and skip wholesalers. The pricing model is cost plus a 15% markup, plus flat fees; sources disagree on the fee amounts because they have changed (NBC News cited a $3 fee in 2022, while Wikipedia lists a $5 service fee and $5.25 shipping as of 2026).
The catalogue grew fast. Wikipedia reports more than 100 generics in June 2022 and more than 2,200 by December 2023. Humana’s April 2026 release, which repeats the company’s own description, says Cost Plus Drugs carries over 2,300 prescription products and ships to “thousands” of customers daily. Those are company figures, and the release gives no revenue or customer total.
The study that gave it authority
The credibility moment was outside research, not marketing. In June 2022, NBC News reported a research letter in Annals of Internal Medicine, led by Dr. Hussain Lalani of Brigham and Women’s Hospital. It compared Cost Plus prices on 89 generics with what Medicare Part D plans paid in 2020. After adjusting for price changes it estimated $8.1 billion paid versus $4.5 billion at Cost Plus prices, a gap of about $3.6 billion.
The caveats matter, and NBC reported them. The comparison covered only drugs Cost Plus sold, about 25% of roughly $38 billion in 2020 Part D generic spending, and it did not include out-of-pocket costs. Juliette Cubanski of KFF, who was not involved, noted that most Medicare dollars go to brand-name and specialty drugs, so the savings are limited by comparison.
The pivot: from critic to channel
Two moves in the past year show the shift.
TrumpRx. Pharmaceutical Commerce reported on October 22, 2025 that Cuban confirmed at the HLTH 2025 keynote that Cost Plus Drugs would collaborate with TrumpRx, which was expected to launch in early 2026. Cuban described TrumpRx as a “search engine” that refers people to direct-to-consumer sites such as Cost Plus Drugs, rather than selling drugs itself. The article reports no financial terms. It also quotes him on volume: “As our volumes go up, our costs go down.”
Humana. Fierce Healthcare headlined in December 2025 that Cost Plus Drugs and Humana were exploring a partnership on employer drug costs. On April 27, 2026, Humana’s release made it concrete: CenterWell Pharmacy, part of Humana, and Cost Plus Drugs announced they would develop “end-to-end employer prescription solutions.” Cost Plus Drugs selected CenterWell as a pharmacy partner, and CenterWell will use Cost Plus Drugs’ SwiftyRx software for order intake. The release says that is expected to let CenterWell offer home delivery to eligible employees in the Humana Associate Benefit Plan.
Cuban is quoted in the release: “Everyone should be able to get safe, affordable medication.” He added: “We’re working with CenterWell Pharmacy because we trust the team.” Bethanie Stein, Pharm.D., president of pharmacy at Humana, said CenterWell’s value “lies in our capacity, infrastructure, and proven quality measures.”
What is not known
The Humana release describes an intended new employer program design. It does not disclose financial terms, pricing, contract details, a launch date, how many employees would be covered, or any savings. Nobody has published figures on how much revenue either arrangement produces for Cost Plus Drugs.
What a reader can take from it
This is an interpretation, not a reported fact: an outsider’s authority is easiest to build by attacking a system, and hardest to keep once the outsider needs the system’s infrastructure. Cuban’s answer, on the record so far, is to supply pricing and software while a large incumbent supplies distribution. Whether that preserves the “no middlemen” story is a question the undisclosed terms leave open.
For anyone building authority on a critique, the lesson is concrete. Publish the formula, let independent researchers test it, and be ready to say plainly what happens when scale requires partners. The test of Cuban’s version will be whether Cost Plus Drugs’ pricing stays visible inside the partnerships.
