Billionaire investor Mark Cuban shot down a presidential run Wednesday while detailing his broader efforts to team up with the Trump administration to lower drug costs for all Americans.
“It’s not going to happen,” he said of a presidential bid on “Fox & Friends.”
“My dream has not been to be president, but my dream, and truly, as an entrepreneur, I think I can have an impact and really change the economics of healthcare in this country. I think that’s something that can have as big an impact as any political position.”
During his live morning walk with Fox News’ Steve Doocy in Pittsburgh, Cuban elaborated on how he plans to use those aspirations in conjunction with TrumpRx, the Trump administration’s effort to connect U.S. consumers with lower-cost drugs, to bring about positive change in the healthcare industry.
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“We’re working really close with TrumpRx,” he shared.
Cuban owns the direct-to-consumer prescription platform CostPlusDrugs.com, which cuts out middlemen like pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) that can contribute to higher drug costs in the marketplace.
He emphasized that the nonpartisan appreciation for cheap medications means Republicans, Democrats and independents like himself can all get on board with the joint effort to bring down costs.
“We’re going to be integrating our list of medications there. We’re looking to bring manufacturing from overseas for generics to Dallas, so there’s so many things we’re doing with the administration that I think will really accelerate [cost reduction],” he added.
Cuban said the mission is simple — to make all aspects of maintaining good health inexpensive, starting with medications and then going “across the board” to all healthcare.
Cuban also shared how his platform is revolutionizing the drug business as is, explaining that the medications’ dramatically lower costs compared to market rates stem from a basic manufacturing cost, a 15% markup to keep the business running, a $5 pharmacy labor fee and a roughly $5 shipping cost.
“You can save a lot of money, particularly if you have cancer, multiple sclerosis, [or] kidney disease,” he said.
“There’s a lot of really expensive drugs out there that, because we only mark it up 15%, we can save people hundreds if not thousands of dollars per month and we’ve really changed people’s lives, and that’s important to me at this time.“
