GoodRx to lay off 16% of its workforce

GoodRx, a company best known for its prescription price transparency tools, will lay off approximately 140 employees, making up about 16% of its workforce.

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the reduction will primarily affect its technology-focused and marketing segments.

“The company is focused on efficiently growing its core prescriptions business, accelerating its pharma manufacturer solutions business and doubling down on consumer engagement,” Karsten Voermann, GoodRx’s chief financial officer, wrote in the SEC filing. “As the company focuses on these goals, it is consolidating functions and eliminating or reducing investment in areas of lower focus.”

THE LARGER TREND

GoodRx posted a $1.4 million net loss during the second quarter, compared with $31.1 million in income during the prior-year quarter. It reported revenue of $191.8 million, a 9% increase from $176.6 million in the second quarter last year. 

The company also said it had resolved an issue with an unnamed national grocery chain – which analysts suspected was Kroger – that had affected the acceptance of pharmacy benefit discounts for some drugs. 

During its second quarter earnings call, GoodRx said it was focusing on developing new services and incentives to ensure users would create accounts on their platform, which it doesn’t require to provide a “frictionless” experience. 

“We believe the benefits of deeper relationships with our consumers will allow us to help them better navigate their healthcare journey with even more compelling GoodRx value proposition and user experience,” cofounder and co-CEO Trevor Bezdek said. 

“We also believe that allowing users to provide us more information will increase the LTV [lifetime value] of each user in prescription transactions and other areas of the business over time as we leverage it to create new tools and products for our users in quarters and years to come.” 

GoodRx’s announcement marks the latest in a line of digital health and health tech companies that have laid off workers this summer. Insider recently reported that telehealth services vendor Wheel cut 17% of its workforce in mid-August. 

AI-backed genomic and clinical data company Sema4 announced it had laid off around 250 workers, about 13% of its workforce, last month. Its founder Eric Schadt also stepped down from his roles at the company. Meditation app Calm also recently let go of 20% of its staffers. 

Others announcing layoffs over the past few months include Pear Therapeutics, Included Health, Olive, Cedar, Ro and Carbon Health.