GoodRx's co-founders step down as co-CEOs

GoodRx's co-founders Trevor Bezdek and Doug Hirsch are stepping down from their roles as co-CEOs, the company said Tuesday.

Scott Wagner was appointed interim CEO of the consumer drug price comparison and digital health company. The company will search for a permanent CEO, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Tuesday.

Related: FTC’s enforcement action against GoodRx ‘a wakeup call' for digital health companies

Bezdek will serve as chairman of the company’s board while Hirsch will take on the role of its chief mission officer. Hirsch will continue to work with the company's healthcare providers and pharma clients in his role while Bezdek will provide direction on overall strategy and work directly with Wagner. 

Wagner was previously the former CEO of internet domain registrar GoDaddy, a company that reached approximately $3 billion in revenue under his watch. He is on the board of fundraising platform company GoFundMe.   

Hirsch, a veteran of Yahoo! and Facebook, founded GoodRx along with software entrepreneur Bezdek in 2011. The company went public in September 2020 and reached a high in February 2021 when it traded at more than $55 per share. But GoodRx has faced a challenging few years thanks to a stumbling economy and competition from others in drug pricing space including Amazon. As a result, the company's stock price has fallen significantly. It closed at $5.49 per share on Tuesday.

In February, the Federal Trade Commission alleged the company shared consumers’ personal health information to Facebook, Google and other third parties. The Department of Justice, on behalf of the FTC, filed a complaint and proposed order for permanent injunction against the company Wednesday. Under the order, GoodRx would be prohibited from sharing health information with third parties and be fined $1.5 million. The order, which GoodRx agreed to, was approved by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.   

At the time, the company released a statement saying while it did not agree with the FTC’s allegations and admitted no wrongdoing, paying the settlement would help avoid the time and expense of protracted litigation.

GoodRx posted a net loss in 2022 of $32.8 million, or 8 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $25 million, or 6 cents per share, in 2021. Revenue increased from $745 million in 2021 to $765 million in 2022. The company dealt with an issue in 2022 with one of its bigger customers in national grocery chain Kroger, which resulted in $40 to $50 million in lost revenue. In September, the company trimmed its workforce by 16%.