COVID-19 testing startup Curative to lay off 109 employees while focusing

California-based startup Curative offers COVID-19 testing and vaccination services across the United States, but as testing needs have declined, the company is focused on launching a new health plan.

Due to the change of course, the company is laying off 109 employees at the beginning of November.

The company has filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act with the State of California. WARN is a US labor law that requires employers with 100 or more employees to provide advance notice of mass layoffs and plant closures 60 calendar days in advance.

“As the company transitions from COVID-19 testing to the launch of a new health plan in Austin, Texas, we are reducing headcount in some areas of the business and expanding in others,” said a spokesperson for Curative. MobiHealthNews.

Curative will launch its employer-based health plan first in Travis and Williamson counties in Texas, and then across the state of Texas in the coming year. Subsequently, she plans to offer her plan in addition states.

The plan will offer $0 co-payments and $0 deductibles for in-network care. To be eligible, members must complete a preventative health referral visit within 120 days to continue to receive $0 deductible, $0 co-payment, and $0 in-network care out-of-pocket.

THE GREAT TREND

Many digital health and health technology companies have announced layoffs since the start of 2022.

In June, Carbon Health, a chain of healthcare clinics that offers telemedicine services, laid off 250 employees, or about 8% of the company’s workforce. Carbon earned significant revenue from its COVID-19 services, but the company shut down many of those services as the pandemic moved on.

July saw a virtual care company Inclusive Health cut its number of employees by less than 6%, and maker of digital prescription therapeutics Pear Therapeutics laid off 9% of its full-time workforce.

Calmsa company that thrived during the pandemic by offering an app to help with meditation, stress and sleep, has laid off 20% of its staff due to what CEO David Ko said the company “wasn’t not [being] protected from the impacts of the current economic environment.”

Cue Health, which offers an at-home COVID-19 molecular test, laid off 170 manufacturing workers at the start of the summer.

More recently, GoodRx, a company known for its prescription price transparency tools, laid off about 140 of its workforce, or about 16% of its employees. The reduction mainly affected its technology and marketing-focused segments.

Other companies that have faced massive layoffs include 23andMe, one of the largest genomics platforms in the United States, a payment company Cedar, healthcare automation company Olive, and AI-powered genomic and clinical data company Sema4.