Amazon Pharmacy home screen on a laptop set within the Brooklyn neighborhood of Latest York City, U.S., Tuesday, November 17, 2020.
Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Amazon on Tuesday announced a latest prescription complement for US Prime members, hoping to spice up subscriptions and attract users to its pharmacy services.
The add-on, called RxPass, will allow Prime members to get as many drugs as they need from a list of fifty generic drugs to treat over 80 common chronic conditions like hypertension, anxiety and diabetes. The service costs $5 per person per 30 days, and delivery is free.
In recent times, Amazon has gone deeper into healthcare. The corporate launched its own online pharmacy in 2020, a service that spawned from its acquisition of PillPack in 2018. Amazon introduced, then shut down, a telehealth service called Amazon Care and announced in July that it could acquire boutique primary care provider One Medical.
Amazon also offers a Prime Prescription Savings Profit that provides discounts of as much as 80% on generics and as much as 40% on branded prescriptions.
Amazon is increasing advantages for its Prime subscription program as CEO Andy Jassy looks to chop costs elsewhere at the corporate. Amazon intended to put off about 18,000 employees, while freezing corporate employment and curtailing some projects. Still, Jassy said Amazon intends to proceed to pursue long-term opportunities, including healthcare.
The net retailer faces pharmacy competition corresponding to CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart. Amazon didn’t say how its online pharmacy lineup has fared since launch. An August report by Morgan Stanley found Amazon Pharmacy not the most effective add-on for Prime members, based on a user survey, in response to Business Insider.
Amazon’s chief medical officer, Vin Gupta, said the corporate’s goal is to supply a pharmacy experience that is “fundamentally different” to how pharmacies have existed over the past few a long time.
“It’s still the primary day for us that we’re within the early stages here, but we realize that a change is needed,” Gupta said in an interview. “That is what patients tell us across the country, and that is what Amazon is responding to.”
RxPass doesn’t offer insulin or specialty medications and is not available to people on Medicaid or Medicare. Gupta declined to say whether Amazon will expand the drug list offered by RxPass in the longer term.
He said about 150 million persons are taking not less than one in every of the drugs included within the initial RxPass form.
— Bertha Coombs of CNBC contributed to this text.