Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Co. and pharmacy benefit manager RxPreferred Benefits partnered to bring Mr. Cuban's online pharmacy to employers and their members part of the PBM, the two companies said Jan. 11.
After axing its plans to build its own PBM, Cost Plus Drugs has teamed up with three PBMs: Rightway, EmsanaRx and RxPreferred Benefits.
"Our partnership with RxPreferred is another step in the direction of bringing transparency to healthcare and lowering drug costs for individuals and families across the country," Mr. Cuban said in a news release. "We are excited to work with a like-minded company that aligns with our goals and puts improving access to affordable prescriptions first."
The FTC is investigating six of the largest PBMs — CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, OptumRx, Humana, Prime Therapeutics and MedImpact Healthcare Systems — because of allegations of opaque business practices on how the middlemen, who work between payers and pharmacies, determine drug prices.
Cost Plus Drugs' PBM partnerships are looking to work outside of those six.
"It's turned out to be much more efficient to partner with transparently minded and innovative PBMs like Rightway," Cost Plus Drugs founder and CEO Alex Oshmyansky, MD, PhD, told Becker's in September. "Why build all that infrastructure ourselves when there are good actors in the space who already have done it for us?"