Cuban elaborated on six ways this could happen:

“Divorce formularies from PBMs. Require them to come from independent organizations with no economic incentive from the formulary. Make them about wellness, not pay for play like a grocery store endcap.”
“Require PBMs to provide all claims data to employers, states and manufacturers. The manufacturers need this to provide better results. It’s insane they don’t have this data to analyze and improve patient results.”
“Remove the specialty tier and the requirement to buy from any specified pharmacy. There is nothing special about specialty drugs. They call them special to jack up the price. And of course, have them divest any that they do.”
“Require that all pharmacies get fully reimbursed for brand drugs and get rid of the generic cost ratio, which allows distributors to jack up pricing on generics with the threat of chargebacks and more.”
“Remove confidentiality clauses. They prevent companies from talking to manufacturers.”
“Stop biosimilar substitution calls. PBMs know that they need to find new sources of margin. They do it by white labeling their own biosimilar versions. That’s fine. But because that’s where all the margin is, they will put a low cost biosim on the formulary, and when they get a script for the lower cost option, they will have someone call the prescribing doctor to switch to their more expensive version they make more money on.”

Drug prices have increased sharply in recent years. Between January 2022 and January 2023, prices rose more than 15% and reached an average of $590 per drug product, according to HHS.

Instant Insights /

Mark Cuban praises Trump's PBM executive order, predicts 'hundreds of billions' in savings

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