Despite coming up in the worlds of entrepreneurship and reality television, Mark Cuban has become a big name in the healthcare industry in recent years.

In 2022, the billionaire entrepreneur founded Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, an online pharmacy that skirts insurance and sells drugs at cost with a 15% markup and fee for pharmacy labor and shipping. The company also posts on its website exactly how much it paid manufacturers for the medicines it sells in an effort to boost transparency in a historically complex and opaque industry.

In a recent interview, Cuban told Healthcare Brew he became interested in disrupting the healthcare industry in 2017 when the first Trump administration was determined to “repeal and replace” Obamacare.

“Out of curiosity, I dug in and started getting involved with it and trying to look at ways to change the system, and come up with better approaches to health insurance and healthcare,” he said.

When Alex Oshmyansky, a radiologist who became co-founder and CEO of Cost Plus, sent Cuban an email pitching a compounding pharmacy to manufacture drugs on the FDA’s shortage list, Cuban said, “I thought, ‘OK, that’s cool, but that’s not big enough.’”

Find more nuggets of wisdom from Cuban here.—MA

Working 9-to-5 is getting a new meaning at Knoxville-based East Tennessee Children’s Hospital after it officially rebranded on Feb. 26.

While leadership declined to share the donation amount from the singer and actress, the newly named Dolly Parton Children’s Hospital launched, adding another badge to Parton’s long philanthropic history.

“Every child deserves world-class care, wrapped in kindness and love,” Parton said in a press release. “I’m so honored to stand alongside this hospital and do my part to help bring more hope, more comfort, and more healing to children and families.”

But the name change is more than just a new sign slapped on a building. Both a hospital executive and advertising expert told us the rebrand could bring more recognition, additional philanthropy, and possibly better care to the 152-bed independent hospital that serves 500,000 patients each year.

What’s in a name? Authencity, perhaps.—CM

As demand for radiopharmaceuticals and nuclear medicine increases, US-based producers are aiming to meet the moment.

Radiopharmaceuticals are radioactive treatments that can diagnose and treat cancer. One of the US’s largest manufacturers, Cardinal Health, announced today that it’s expanding its production of actinium-225, a radionuclide used for cancer treatment, at a facility in Indianapolis, Indiana. The news comes on the heels of last week’s announcement from Shine Technologies—one of Cardinal’s suppliers—that it is now exporting its own medical isotope, lutetium-177, from its production site in Wisconsin to China though Chinese radiopharmaceutical company C-Ray.

The US typically relies on overseas reactors for critical radiopharmaceuticals, something that the Trump administration has expressed a desire to change. In press releases for both announcements, Cardinal Health and Shine underscored the impact their latest advancements will have on the US radiopharmaceutical supply chain and increasing demand.

Here’s what Cardinal and Shine have planned.—TC

Real jobs, shared through real communities. CollabWORK brings opportunities directly to Healthcare Brew readers—no mass postings, no clutter, just roles worth seeing. Click here to view the full job board.

• Fractional Chief Medical Officer (CMO) at Allia Health Group
• Chief Medical Officer at Shekina Glory Legacy Hospice
• Executive Director Clinical Innovation at Mercy
• Director, Inpatient Surgical Unit at Seattle Children's Hospital
• Director of Regulatory and Patient Safety at Stony Brook Medicine