Amazon Pharmacy is an American online

pharmacy Pharmacy is the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, reviewing and monitoring medications, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of medicines. It is a miscellaneous science as it links heal ...

which is a subsidiary of

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. The business was launched on November 17, 2020, initially offering pharmacy service only in the United States.

Launch and business model

On November 17, 2020, Amazon launched Amazon Pharmacy. The move was described as "arguably Amazon’s broadest push into the healthcare business to-date." Amazon Pharmacy's business is based on sales. The company offers free, two-day home delivery of prescriptions to

Amazon Prime Amazon Prime is a paid subscription service from Amazon which is available in various countries and gives users access to additional services otherwise unavailable or available at a premium to other Amazon customers. Services include same, one- ...

subscribers. Amazon Pharmacy requires customers to establish a secure pharmacy profile to manage insurance and medical information. At the time of its formation, Amazon Pharmacy's operation was limited to the United States. At the time of its launch, Amazon Pharmacy also announced its intention to offer a help line staffed by pharmacists and a discount program for uninsured customers. Challenges faced by Amazon Pharmacy include the need for customers to ask doctors to redirect prescriptions, customer habit in using nearby brick-and-mortar drug stores, and customer desire to speak in person with a pharmacist.

Impact on existing pharmacies

The formation of Amazon Pharmacy was expected to result in disruption of the retail pharmacy sector. On the day of its launch, stock prices for competitors dropped:

GoodRx GoodRx Holdings, Inc. is an American healthcare company that operates a telemedicine platform and a free-to-use website and mobile app that track prescription drug prices in the United States and provide free drug coupons for discounts on medic ...

by 20%;

Rite Aid Rite Aid Corporation is an American drugstore chain based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1962 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, by Alex Grass under the name Thrift D Discount Center. The company ranked No. 148 in the Fortune 500 lis ...

by 16%; and

Walgreens Walgreen Company, d/b/a Walgreens, is an American company that operates the second-largest pharmacy store chain in the United States behind CVS Health. It specializes in filling prescriptions, health and wellness products, health information, an ...

and

CVS Pharmacy CVS Pharmacy, Inc. is an American retail corporation. A subsidiary of CVS Health, it is headquartered in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. It was also known as, and originally named, the Consumer Value Store and was founded in Lowell, Massachusetts, in ...

by 9% each. In all, drugstores, drug distributors, and health insurers lost $22 billion in market value on the day of Amazon Pharmacy's launch. An analysis from Citi Research called the announcement "a disruption to the system and competitive threat that will likely shift scripts away from the retail channel." An Edwards Jones analyst opined that Amazon Pharmacy was a particular threat to smaller drugstores that lack the purchasing power of major drugstore chains.

Relationship to PillPack

The establishment of Amazon Pharmacy followed Amazon's acquisition of

PillPack PillPack, Inc. is an American online pharmacy which is a subsidiary of Amazon.com. It is based in Manchester, New Hampshire, United States. The company was founded in 2013. History The company was founded in 2013 by TJ Parker and Elliot Cohen. By ...

in June 2018 for a reported . In an interim step, Amazon rebranded PillPack in November 2019 as "PillPack, by Amazon Pharmacy". With the launch of Amazon Pharmacy, the company announced that PillPack would continue to operate as a "distinct service for customers managing multiple daily medications for chronic conditions."

References

{{Amazon Pharmacies of the United States American companies established in 2020 Retail companies established in 2020 Amazon (company)