# Cost Plus Drugs to Integrate with Trump’s New Drug Price Tool, TrumpRx
A new initiative aimed at increasing prescription drug price transparency will include data from online pharmacy Cost Plus Drugs, founded by Mark Cuban.
LAS VEGAS – Cost Plus Drugs will participate in President Donald Trump’s forthcoming drug price transparency tool, TrumpRx, according to the company’s founder, Mark Cuban. The proclamation, made during Cuban’s keynote address at the HLTH conference on Sunday, came alongside a sharp critique of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and their role in inflating U.S. medication costs.
Trump unveiled TrumpRx last month,describing the website as a platform enabling Americans to directly compare prescription drug prices and access discounts without relying on insurance. The website, slated to launch early next year, will function as a search engine directing consumers to direct-to-consumer drug websites, Cuban explained. It will not directly sell or distribute medications.
Cost Plus Drugs, known for it’s model of selling prescriptions at cost plus a 15% markup, is providing access to its application programming interface (API) to allow TrumpRx to pull price data. cuban anticipates that increased visibility through TrumpRx will translate to higher volumes for Cost Plus Drugs, ultimately driving down costs for patients.
“As as our volumes go up, our costs go down. And when our costs go down, the price for patients go down. So for us, it’ll be great,” Cuban said. He also expressed positive feedback regarding the team currently developing TrumpRx, stating thay are “great” and deserving of “all the accolades.”
this assessment represents a shift from Cuban’s initial evaluation of the program. in a post on X (formerly Twitter) last month, he assigned TrumpRx a “B” grade. While acknowledging his respect for the project team, including Chris Klomp, the Medicare director at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Cuban expressed skepticism about the potential for significant disruption to the PBM industry.
“Why not an A? The stock prices of PBMs didn’t get crushed. Which means, so far, no one expects much change for them,” Cuban wrote.
For years, Cuban has focused on reducing the influence of PBMs, which he views as powerful intermediaries in the pharmaceutical supply chain. This concern was a primary motivator behind his founding of Cost Plus Drugs in 2022. Cuban argues that the current PBM model incentivizes prioritizing drugs with large rebates over the moast affordable options for patients. He has also been critical of PBM practices that he claims unfairly impact independent pharmacies through unfavorable reimbursement rates and audit procedures.
cuban’s frustration with the existing system is palpable, describing the current state of affairs as “costing everybody hundreds of billions of dollars,” using strong language to express his frustration.
. the success of TrumpRx and its ability to meaningfully impact drug prices will likely hinge on its ability to overcome the entrenched power of PBMs and deliver tangible savings to consumers.
