GoodRx Acquiring Pharmacy Platform VitaCare to Make Name-Brand Drugs Cheaper
Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.
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Prescription drug platform GoodRx has made its latest foray into the lucrative world of name-brand drugs with the $150 million acquisition of pharmacy services platform VitaCare, it announced Monday.
Santa Monica-based GoodRx has agreed to acquire VitaCare from Florida-based women’s pharmaceuticals firm TherapeuticsMD, and will pay up to an additional $7 million based on VitaCare’s financial performance through 2023, it said. VitaCare’s platform helps patients find lower-cost access to drugmakers’ name-brand treatments, lets them fill prescriptions through third-party pharmacies and answers questions about their prescriptions and health care coverage. The deal is expected to close in “mid-2022,” according to GoodRx.
“Pharma manufacturers want to help patients find affordable options but too many consumers still face affordability challenges or complex reimbursement processes,” GoodRx co-founder and co-CEO Doug Hirsch said in a statement. “With VitaCare, we aim to grow our reach and provide new tools for both consumers and providers to help ensure that more patients can access relevant savings programs and navigate prior authorization requirements.
Since launching in 2011, GoodRx has made a name for itself by collecting coupons from various drug manufacturers and providing them to patients, who can use them to get discount prices on their medication. Name-brand drugs are often much more expensive than generic alternatives, partly because pharmaceutical companies are trying to recoup losses after conducting lengthy and expensive clinical trials. However, generic drugs are often just as effective as their name-brand counterparts, according to the Food and Drug Administration, and can be 80-85% cheaper than name-brand drugs.
The VitaCare deal arrives on the heels of an active 2021 on the acquisitions front for GoodRx, which purchased rival discount prescription service RxSaver for $50 million and health video platform HealthiNation for $75 million last year.
Representatives for GoodRx did not return requests for comment.
Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.
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