Mark Cuban is the latest entrepreneur to take aim at the $350 billion market for prescription drugs in the U.S. The mercurial businessman and investor, who is best known as the owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and a panelist on the television series “Shark Tank,” is entering the category in a big way. Coming on the heels of the debut of its pharmacy benefits management company last November, the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co. last month launched an online medication dispensary.

Promising to protect consumers from what it characterizes as inflated prices, the public benefit corporation’s initial offering consists of 100 generic drugs, a number that is expected to increase with the completion of a new facility in Dallas later this year. Examples of the kind of products on which patients can realize substantial savings at costplusdrugs.com include colchicine, a gout treatment, and imatinib, for leukemia. The former, according to the company, has a monthly retail price of $182 and costs as little as $102 with a voucher, but it can be purchased for $8.70 on the new website. The respective figures for the latter are $9,657, $120 and $47.

“We will do whatever it takes to get affordable pharmaceuticals to patients,” notes Alex Oshmyansky, chief executive officer of Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co. “The markup on potentially life-saving drugs that people depend on is a problem that can’t be ignored. It is imperative that we take action and help expand access to these medications for those who need them most.”

The company’s ability to deliver real savings stems from its status as a registered drug wholesaler, according to executives. By bypassing middlemen, costplusdrugs.com limits prices to the acquisition cost plus a 15% markup and a pharmacist’s fee. That approach, which eschews spread pricing and limits business to cash customers, together with costpluspbm.com’s commitment to “radical transparency,” reflects Oshmyansky’s belief that “the only way to ensure that affordable prices get through is to vertically integrate.”

Time will tell whether the business model developed by Cuban, Oshmyansky and their colleagues works, and how big an impact it might have on the prescription drug market, but the venture highlights the fact that sources of innovation in the pharmacy sector are no longer limited to established players. Advances in technology; a pressing need to reengineer the health care system to expand access, improve quality and reduce costs; and changing consumer expectations have cleared the way for Cuban and other entrepreneurs to challenge the status quo.

Would-be disruptors in community pharmacy face formidable obstacles. The business is complex, with powerful companies at every stage of the supply chain, myriad legal and regulatory requirements that have to be met, and a high cost of entry. Entrepreneurs can, however, take heart from the history of retailing, which includes myriad examples of companies which were once viewed as invincible — Woolworth’s, A&P, Sears Roebuck and Kmart among them — that are now defunct.

Those once mighty retailers fell victim to competitors with better ideas about how to serve customers, the ability to execute them effectively and the agility to adapt as market conditions changed. Think of the success upstarts Walmart and Amazon had in rewriting the rules of the game and offering consumers new ways to shop. So who’s to say that Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co. or one of the many other pharmacy startups won’t succeed in shaking things up?

Current leaders in the prescription drug market are alert to that possibility, and they’re evolving their business model. CVS Health, Walgreens Boots Alliance and Walmart, among others, are bringing physician-delivered services to their stores; Rite Aid, like CVS, owns a pharmacy benefits management company; and Kroger and other supermarket operators are leveraging the connection between nutrition and health.

Brick-and-mortar pharmacies are betting that enhanced in-store services in the traditionally high-touch realm of health care will keep them a step ahead of tech-enabled alternatives. Fair enough, based on what we know today. But entrenched companies must remain vigilant. Innovation is an unpredictable process, and incumbents are often blinded by long-held perceptions and force of habit, while newcomers see a problem with fresh eyes. There’s no telling where the next transformative idea in pharmacy will come from.