Amazon has started a subscription service that lets Prime members purchase multiple drugs for a flat fee of $5 a month, the e-commerce giant's latest foray into healthcare.
Called RxPass, the offering lets patients order generic medications that treat more than 80 common health conditions, the company said in a statement Tuesday. Customers need to be members of Amazon's $139-a-year Prime service to join and will be entitled to free delivery.
Prices for some individual generic drugs are already cheap, so $5 a month doesn't necessarily represent a discount, said Kate McCarthy, a Gartner vice president who tracks healthcare. But for patients juggling multiple medications, it may be.
Read more:
"Let's say I take a blood-pressure med and an antidepressant, I probably can't get both of those for $5 somewhere else," she said.
RxPass is available in most U.S. states but for now excludes a number of heavily populated ones, including California, Pennsylvania and Texas. The program's web page lists a menu of 53 available medications.
"They're going for wallet-share for their most loyal customers," McCarthy said. "I don't think they're going into this trying to make money. They're trying to get customers" for their pharmacy offerings."
Read more:
Amazon for years has been trying to become a force in the healthcare industry. The Seattle-based company purchased mail-order pharmacy PillPack in 2018 and joined a much ballyhooed health care venture with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway that fizzled out after three years.
Amazon also developed a telehealth and home health service, called Amazon Care, that wound down after operating for a little more than a year. Amazon is now trying to purchase the parent of the One Medical line of medical clinics for $3.49 billion.
