Amazon is expanding its efforts into healthcare with the introduction of a generic drug subscription service aimed at consumers with common ailments like high blood pressure, acid reflux or anxiety.
The drug delivery service, RxPass, costs $5 per month for Amazon Prime members. Amazon Prime costs $14.99 per month or $139 annually.
The service, announced Tuesday, begins immediately in most states except California, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington because of state-specific requirements. Vin Gupta, medical director of Amazon Pharmacy, said there are about 50 generic drugs that treat 80 health conditions available on the registry.
John Love, vice president of Amazon Pharmacy, said RxPass will target people with chronic conditions who need multiple prescription drugs and have to pay out of pocket. Love said the lack of price transparency for prescription drugs prompted the company to decide to start the service.
“The majority of the scripts Americans get are curated the way they’ve been for decades,” Love said. “Patient Control [to the pharmacy]they stand in a common environment…and they find the price to pay at the point of interest.”
While a complete list of medications isn’t immediately available, RxPass will cover many medications for high blood pressure and Venlafaxine for anxiety and depression.
The service is not available to anyone enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid or any other government health care program because those people have a $0 copay, Love said. He said RxPass will use the company’s existing pharmaceutical infrastructure and distribution channels.
RxPass is the latest product of the big tech company in the pharmaceutical sector through its Amazon Pharmacy subsidiary. In 2018, the company bought online pharmaceutical company PillPack for $750 million. It also partners with many Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans to deliver drugs through home delivery. And it launched PrimeRx in late 2020, allowing people to compare drug prices and offering the potential for savings.
Amazon partnered with Inside Rx, a prescription drug price comparison service owned by Express Scripts, to manage RxPass and PrimeRx.
ScriptCo Pharmacy, a membership-based pharmaceutical company, offers the same service as RxPass for an annual fee of $140.
Over the last few years, generic drugs have become an area of focus for startups and industry disruptors.
A group of health systems and charities launched the nonprofit Civica Rx in 2018 to make generic drugs more widely available. In March 2022, the nonprofit said it was planning to make insulin at a lower price, making it more accessible to people with diabetes.
Entrepreneur Mark Cuban co-founded a mail-order drug service called The Mark Cuba Cost Plus Drug Co., which works with drug manufacturers to provide generic drugs at a fixed price. . It teamed up with EmansaRx, a pharmaceutical benefits manager that spun out of the Health Buyers Business Group, in December to offer discounted prescription drugs to self-insured employers.
As Amazon awaits federal approval of its proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of One Medical, the tech giant has continued to invest with the launch of Amazon Clinics in November.
