Digital healthcare services company GoodRx Holdings Inc. has signed an agreement to buy vitaCare Prescription Services from fellow publicly traded venture TherapeuticsMD Inc.
Santa Monica, California-based GoodRx will pay $150 million in cash for vitaCare, which helps patients verify insurance coverage, check for coupons and overcome other barriers to adhering to their prescriptions. Depending on the performance of Boca Raton, Florida-headquartered vitaCare, GoodRx could pay TherapeuticsMD another $7 million by the end of next year. GoodRx co-CEO Doug Hirsch and his team expect vitaCare to contribute only negligibly to the company’s revenues this year and lower its adjusted EBITDA margin, which was 30.8 percent in 2021, by about two percentage points.
TherapeuticsMD executives, whose main focus is on women’s health pharmeceuticals, have been cutting costs and looking to raise capital to meet their financing needs and put vitaCare on the market in late 2020. The sale of the business, which had operating costs of about $20 million in 2021, is expected to close around the middle of the year.
“Pharma manufacturers want to help patients find affordable options but too many consumers still face affordability challenges or complex reimbursement processes,” Hirsch said in a statement last week. “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.”
In the statement announcing the deal, GoodRx leaders pointed to data from IQVIA, FDA and DrFirst show that only about half of the 500 million brand prescriptions written each year in the United States are actually filled. Adding vitaCare to their lineup of content and communication tools as well as patient navigator programs, they added, will give them more tools to help improve patients’ medication awareness, access and adherence.
“Consumers come to vitaCare looking for a seamless, patient-first experience that will help them get the brand medications they are prescribed,” said John Milligan, vitaCare’s CEO. “Upon joining the GoodRx team, we hope to expand our network of pharmaceutical manufacturers and put even more therapies within reach for consumers.”
GoodRx recently reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $40 million, with adjusted EBITDA coming in at about $62 million, on revenues of $213 million. For the year, the company—which has more than 6.4 million monthly active consumer and 1.6 million subscribers—lost about $25 million on sales of $745 million. Its shares (Ticker: GDRX) are down about 70 percent over the past six months, lowering the company’s market capitalization to about $5.5 billion.
