(This story is from our new Health Tech newsletter. If you’d like to sign up, just click here.)
GoodRx said on Wednesday that it has won back its relationship with Kroger to offer prescription discount coupons to people at its pharmacies, but this time it will work directly with the grocer to do it.
The company was hit hard when Kroger ended the relationship in 2022. Kroger, which operates more than 2,200 pharmacies, accounted for a big percentage of the digital health company’s prescription volume and about $30 million in revenue. At the time, GoodRx didn’t name the grocer, but it was largely suspected to be Kroger.
Over the past year, GoodRx has been retooling its model to work more closely with pharmacies rather than through pharmacy benefit managers. Historically, GoodRx got paid when customers used a PBM coupon to pay pharmacies in cash rather than through insurance, an approach that was at the crux of the grocer’s decision to stop working with GoodRx.
Scott WagnerGoodRx interim CEO Scott Wagner said on Wednesday during the company’s investor day that he doesn’t expect to go back to the full claims volume that it once had with Kroger, but rather “somewhere in the middle.” In 2021, Kroger made up about 20% of GoodRx’s prescription volume, and it dropped off almost entirely by 2023.
“It would be really nice for Kroger and us to go hand-in-hand and frankly capture our fair share of prescription volume,” Wagner said.
Through direct contracts with retail pharmacies, GoodRx works with a pharmacy to set the prices they’re able to provide to consumers who aren’t paying with insurance. In Kroger’s case, that’ll look like nearly 50% savings off generic medications via a GoodRx coupon starting June 1, GoodRx said on Wednesday.
GoodRx’s stock $GDRX jumped as much as 13% on Wednesday morning.