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Layoffs at Drkoop.com
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May 19, 2000: 4:45 p.m. ET
Troubled health care Web site, in budget move, lays off 30 employees
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - The troubled Internet health company Drkoop.com laid off 30 people Thursday in an effort to conserve cash while the company tries to find badly needed outside funding.
Drkoop's annual report said that the company had 185 full-time employees as of Feb. 29. The 30 layoffs made Thursday, combined with attrition and the elimination of some contractors and outside consultants, have reduced the company's full-time equivalent staff by 35 percent since April 1, said Drkoop spokeswoman Laura Hicks.
The site, named for one of its founders - the popular former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop - went public in a healthy debut last June, but shares are now trading around $2.50 a share, down from an intra-day high of $45 last July.
 Drkoop said on May 15 that its first-quarter revenue was $4.7 million, compared with $404,000 for the same period of 1999. Its loss for the quarter ended March 31 totaled $24.8 million, or $.80 per share, compared to $24.4 million, or $2.84 per share, for the first quarter of 1999.
Drkoop ended the first quarter with $23.8 million in cash, an amount the company said will sustain it for "in excess of four months." Drkoop.com said it is pursuing other sources of new cash financing and that it has retained the investment-banking firm Bear Stearns & Co. to explore "strategic alternatives available to the company."
The steady decline in Drkoop's stock has caused the former Surgeon General's paper wealth to melt away. The 2.61 million Drkoop shares he owns are now worth about $6.5 million, down from about $117 million when the stock reached its peak. 
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