At first glance, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban may seem to have little in common with an independent pharmacy owner.
But they have one shared adversary: pharmacy benefit managers. They claim the drug price negotiators are putting mom-and-pop drugstores out of business.
Pharmacy benefit managers — known as PBMs — are third-party intermediaries between drug manufacturers and insurance providers. PBMs reimburse pharmacies for the prescriptions customers buy with insurance, but independent pharmacy owners accuse them of reimbursing far less than the actual cost of medications.
As local pharmacies, like the soon-to-be-shuttered Mainline Pharmacy chain, have struggled and even collapsed, many have blamed PBMs for their woes.
“It’s awful what is happening with independent pharmacies,” Cuban told TribLive via email.
A Mt. Lebanon native, Cuban is best known as minority owner of the NBA franchise Dallas Mavericks and as one of the stars on the ABC reality series “Shark Tank.” He’s also one of the founders of Cost Plus Drugs, an online discount pharmacy.
