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Healthcare Brew covers pharmaceutical developments, health startups, the latest tech, and how it impacts hospitals and providers to keep administrators and providers informed.
New York and Los Angeles residents can now get prescriptions for certain medical conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes delivered to their doors “within hours”—because if you can get cannabis delivered to your door, why not your amlodipine?
Under a new Amazon Pharmacy expansion effort, New York City and Los Angeles join Austin, Indianapolis, Miami, Phoenix, and Seattle in offering same-day delivery.
“By bringing Amazon Pharmacy’s deliveries into our existing world-class logistics network, Amazon is building the fastest and most convenient service for the home delivery of prescription medications,” Doug Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, said in a statement. “These faster delivery speeds will be a game changer when you or your family need your medications quickly.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, “almost 90% of US adults purchased prescriptions at in-store pharmacies, though roughly 30% said they tried online pharmacies, according to a 2023 survey of 20,000 consumers by healthcare market research firm M3 MI. People aged 18 years old to 34 showed the greatest interest in online pharmacy purchases.”
Faster fill, faster delivery, Papa Johns. And it wouldn’t be 2024 without some type of connection to generative artificial intelligence (AI). Amazon executives said that the tech will “help pharmacists fill prescriptions more quickly and accurately.”
“AI doesn’t replace the role of the pharmacist; it allows them to operate at the top of their license,” Kelvin Downes, director of fulfillment for Amazon Pharmacy, said in a statement. “Rather than doing duplicative work, pharmacists can use the skills they went to school for to deliver better patient experiences.”
The Tuesday announcement comes on the heels of Amazon and Eli Lily’s recent tie-up, in which the so-called everything store began delivering some of the pharma giant’s medications to consumers’ doors, as well as last year’s drone delivery service launch in College Station, Texas.
Amazon has sold prescription medication since 2020 and introduced RxPass, a $5/month subscription service for unlimited generic drugs, in January 2023, Healthcare Brew previously reported.
In an October 2023 interview with Healthcare Brew, the company’s VP of Amazon Pharmacy and PillPack, John Love, signaled the company’s move toward faster, if not more convenient, delivery.
“I think there’s more work to do to save customers money and save customers time, and so that’ll be the theme,” Love said at the time. “The launches that we share in the back half of the year and in the future will really anchor around those capabilities.”