Mark Cuban says pharma 'greed' preyed on Real Housewives star Brandi Glanville after six-figure facial disfigurement

The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company (MCCPDC) operates an online pharmacy, Cost Plus Drugs (1), and a transparent Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM).

Rachel Strauss, PBM Princess CEO, has been leveraging Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs pharmacy to offer Glanville affordable medication.

"Rachel turned to us to help Brandi because we are the only truly transparent pricing pharmacy," Cuban told Page Six (2).

As if facial disfigurement wasn't bad enough, the burgeoning bills made it worse

On Glanville's "I Do, Part 2" podcast (3), she chronicles her three-year journey from feeling sick with symptoms like brain fog, joint pain and facial disfigurement to visiting 21 doctors in a desperate search for a diagnosis.

After years of no answers, a sonogram ultimately discovered that her right breast implant had ruptured and leaked silicone, which eventually clogged her lymph nodes — and led to a facial parasite that deformed her face.

Glanville told TMZ (4) that she should have swapped her implants out for a new pair a decade ago — at the 10-year mark — but she decided not to because "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

In 2011, the The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a 63-page report (5) on the safety of silicone breast implants. The report suggests that one out of five patients will need some sort of revision procedure after 10 years of an initial breast augmentation due to complications like excess scarring inside the breast (capsular contracture) and broken implants.

According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (6), however, with proper monitoring — such as through both self-exams and physician exams — "you don't need to automatically replace your implants every 10 years."

Glanville wrongly assumed she was fine, and she paid the price — a hefty price of about $200,000, she said on her podcast.

"I had insurance, but the people at my insurance … suck," she said on her podcast. "I was, like, paying out of pocket to see specialists, infectious disease doctors, you know, rheumatologists. Every doctor you can think of, I saw."

The exorbitant — and often fluctuating — prices of her necessary medications made the experience that much more financially distressing.

Headed into 2026, Glanville told Us Weekly (7) that she was finally "feeling so much better" following her recent health struggles. But she certainly didn't get to this point of peace without putting up a pharmaceutical fight.

Pharmacies inflate the price of critical medications

Strauss has been working with Glanville to go through her bills and pharmacy receipts line by line. In doing so, they found a "tremendous discrepancy from one month to another for the same exact drug," Strauss told Page Six.

"We have to advocate for ourselves," she continues, explaining that consumers cannot always take what pharmacies say as the "source of truth."

Now, PBM Princess is working with Glanville's pharmacy to see what money it owes her back. Had she gone to Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs in the first place, however, she'd have seen as much as a 70 to 80 percent differential, Strauss said. Many of her drugs were upwards of $30, which could have cost her only $6 to $8.

While many people believe that drug research and development (R&D) is a root cause of higher medicine prices, a recent study (8) found zero connection between how much companies spend on R&D and drug prices.

The real reason for the sticker shock, according to Cuban? "Greed."

The U.S. pays, by a longshot, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, even though most pharmaceutical companies rake in billions in profits, according to the U.S. Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (9). Meanwhile, researchers (10) have found that the same drugs made by the same companies to treat the same health issues cost far less in Europe.

"There are pharmacy benefit managers and a few pharmacies that will charge whatever they can get away with," Cuban explained to Page Six of the U.S. drug pricing model.

Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) negotiate prices with health insurers and pharmacies, deciding which drugs are covered and how much patients pay for them. State legislation (11) intends to limit what PBMs can actually do, and Congress enacted PBM transparency legislation in February via the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 (H.R. 7148) (12), which mandates the disclosure of all rebates, fees, and compensation to plan sponsors.

But PBMs often base their fees on a share of the total spend on medicine, which incentivizes them to negotiate rebates contingent on high-list-price, preferred-tier placement. This pumps up patients' out-of-pocket costs.

How to avoid overpaying at pharmacies for medications

"Brandi unfortunately was denied the care that she needed for her illnesses from the medical side," Strauss said. "What's even more unfortunate is she trusted the pharmacy side to also have her best interests – when clearly they did not… It is a shame we weren't able to get these savings sooner – and she was forced out of pocket."

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (13) allows the U.S. government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare, which intends to lower the cost of drugs — the first 10 of which took effect earlier this year. While more drugs will continue to be added to the list each year, there are thousands of FDA-approved drugs on the market (14). In other words: The solution won't benefit everyone.

To avoid finding yourself in the same financial situation as Granville, it's worth asking your healthcare provider if every drug prescribed to you is truly medically necessary — and whether or not it (or a potentially lower-cost generic substitute) is medically necessary at the dose prescribed.