Source: GoodRx
GoodRx is an American healthcare company operating a telemedicine platform and a free-to-use website and mobile app that track prescription drug prices in the United States and provide free drug coupons for discounts on medications. GoodRx checks and compares the prices of more than 75,000 pharmacies in the United States. The website gets about fourteen million visitors a month. And as of February 25, 2020, “millions of people” had downloaded the GoodRx app.
GoodRx was established in Santa Monica, California, in 2011. And in 2017, GoodRx announced partnerships with major prescription drug companies in the country to negotiate lower prescription drug costs. Subsequently, in September 2019, GoodRx acquired the telemedicine company HeyDoctor and rebranded the telemedicine platform as GoodRx Care. The platform allows individuals to consult with a doctor online and obtain a prescription for certain types of medications at the cost of US$20 as of December 2019, regardless of insurance status. Medical testing services, which vary in price, are also offered through the platform. In 2019, the company announced a total of $388.2 million in revenue and is operating out of two locations; the company has at least 200 employees on its payroll.
The Santa Monica, California-based startup was founded in September 2011 by Trevor Bezdek and former Facebook executives Doug Hirsch and Scott Marlette. Marlette was one of the first 20 employees at Facebook and built Facebook’s photo application. In 2005, Hirsch was the Vice President of Product at Facebook, working closely with Mark Zuckerberg. In 2017, Jordan Michaels joined as director of operations. In 2019, technology executive John Asalone joined as a General Manager to add Telehealth to GoodRx’s comparison-shopping platform.
GoodRx, as a growing company, especially in the highly competitive and political health industry, has faced its share of criticism and controversy, most notable among them is a Consumer Reports publication on February 25, 2020. The article stated that GoodRx shared user data—specifically, pseudonymized advertising ID numbers that companies use to track the behavior of web users across websites, the names of the drugs that users browsed, and the pharmacies where user sought to fill prescriptions—with Google, Facebook, and around 20 other internet-based companies. A few days after the Consumer Reports article was published, GoodRx published a statement saying it made changes to prevent user search data on medical conditions and pharmaceuticals from being shared with Facebook.
The company started with a price comparison tool for prescriptions, offering consumers free access to lower prices on their medication. With the acquisition of telemedicine company HeyDoctor in September 2019, GoodRx expanded its services to include virtual care.
In August 2018, the company was valued at $2.8 billion after the private equity firm Silver Lake Management LLC took a significant stake.
With the HeyDoctor deal, GoodRx now competes with other startups that combine virtual care and pharmacy services such as Hims, Hers, Ro, and Nurx. While those companies offer drug delivery, GoodRx doesn’t sell medications; it instead directs consumers to the drugstore with the best prices and offers coupons.
Learn more about GoodRx here.
Sources:
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/tech/goodrx-files-to-go-public-boasting-track-record-profitability
Sponsored Post
