Rightway Raises $155M Series E to Take On the Big Three PBMs

Rightway, the New York company that runs pharmacy benefits and care navigation for employers, has raised $155 million in a Series E led by Francisco Partners. Thrive Capital and Khosla Ventures also participated.

A Different PBM Model

Pharmacy benefit managers sit between employers, drugmakers and pharmacies, and the traditional players make money on rebates and spread pricing, arrangements critics say reward higher list prices.

Rightway markets an aligned financial model instead, one built to pay off when members end up on the most cost-effective clinically appropriate drug rather than the one carrying the largest rebate.

"No one is better positioned to manage the pharmacy benefit than Rightway. We built our financial model to reward getting members onto high-value drugs," said co-founder and CEO Jordan Feldman.

Who Is Buying

The company says 45 Fortune 500 companies are now clients, close to 10% of the list.

Alongside the drug benefit, Rightway staffs clinical teams that guide members through care decisions, a pairing meant to catch expensive missteps before they reach a claim.

"Pharmacists go into healthcare to help people, but retail pharmacy has made it harder to spend time doing that," said chief pharmacy officer Kristin Devlin.

Where the Money Goes

Rightway plans to put the funding into expanding the AI capabilities and underlying technology behind its pharmacy benefits platform.

MobiHealthNews reported the raise as funding for that expansion, which comes as employers push for more visibility into drug spending.

Why It Matters

Drug costs remain one of the fastest-rising lines in employer health budgets, and the three largest PBMs still control the overwhelming majority of prescription claims. Challengers have spent years arguing that a transparent model can win business without rebate economics.

Francisco Partners, a firm with deep healthcare technology holdings, leading a $155 million round is a signal that investors see the transparent-PBM pitch clearing the hardest test: getting large employers to switch.

The next question is retention. Pharmacy benefits contracts run multiple years, and the model has to hold up through renewal cycles at companies that measure every dollar of drug spend.

Source

PR Newswire — "Rightway Raises $155 Million as it Leads the Next Generation of Pharmacy Benefits"