Amazon Pharmacy (AMZN) announced same-day delivery for prescriptions in 20 new states Wednesday, expanding its service to include nearly half of the US in 2025.
The service, Amazon said in a statement, provides delivery "within hours" for customer prescriptions, as long as the order is received by 4 p.m. for delivery up to 10 p.m.
The announcement, part of Amazon's Delivering the Future event in Nashville, will ramp up competition among big pharmacy retailers, which already have similar services for additional fees.
Walgreens (WBA), for example, offers same-day delivery from 8,000 stores — with caveats that orders must be placed by 4 p.m. on weekdays and 1 p.m. on weekends, and it only applies to refills for eligible prescriptions. CVS (CVS), meanwhile, offers a similar service at "almost all" of its stores, with much the same caveats. It specifies on its website that deliveries for same-day will arrive within four hours.
Walmart (WMT) does not have a same-day option but offers overnight delivery for a $15 fee.
Amazon has been investing in its healthcare suite amid an industrywide recoil on brick-and-mortar services.
Walgreens, for example, has pulled out of its clinic offerings, and Walmart recently shuttered its clinic locations. CVS, meanwhile, is focused on a primary care approach, as is Amazon with its One Medical unit.
The same-day strategy, according to Amazon, will help with the problem of patients who do not refill their prescriptions in time. (As many as a third of patients, according to the National Community Pharmacists Association.)
"This rapid access increases the likelihood patients engage immediately in their care and adhere to treatment routines, which is shown to improve health outcomes," said Amazon Pharmacy chief medical officer Dr. Vin Gupta.
Footprint expansion
To date, Amazon has declined to reveal health unit-specific data but continues to invest heavily in expansion on all fronts. The company is building out more One Medical sites, and the announcement Wednesday showcases an investment in building out logistics for medicines.
The expansion complements a contraction of physical pharmacy locations around the country. Major retailers like CVS and Walgreens have closed several hundred stores in the past year, and vertically integrated companies like CVS and UnitedHealth (UNH) have begun to rely on mail order as a way to fill the gap.
While the deliveries will become part of the Same Day delivery sites Amazon already has, there is some buildout needed, such as mini pharmacy locations to help decrease delivery time. These mini-sites include robotic arms and other automation to help speedily fill prescriptions — but are overseen by licensed pharmacists and pharmacy technicians.
The same-day delivery of medicines began in New York City and Los Angeles earlier this year. Some of the new cities include Boston, Dallas, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and San Diego.
Anjalee Khemlani is the senior health reporter at Yahoo Finance, covering all things pharma, insurance, care services, digital health, PBMs, and health policy and politics. That includes GLP-1s, of course. Follow Anjalee on most social media platforms @AnjKhem.
