Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, January 24 (Xinhua)-- Amazon announced a new prescription subsidy for Prime members in the United States on January 24, hoping to increase subscriptions and attract users to its pharmacy service, CNBC reported.

CTOnews.com learned that the additional service, called RxPass, will allow Prime members to obtain the drugs they need from a list of 50 generic drugs that can treat more than 80 common chronic diseases, such as high blood pressure, anxiety and diabetes. The cost of this service is $5 per person per month, free door-to-door delivery.

In recent years, Amazon has gone deep into health care. The company launched its own online pharmacy in 2020, a service that was launched after the acquisition of PillPack in 2018. Amazon also launched a telemedicine service called Amazon Care, which was then shut down, and announced in July that it would buy One Medical, a boutique primary care provider.

In addition, Amazon offers Prime prescription discounts of up to 80 per cent for generics and up to 40 per cent for branded prescription drugs.

Amazon is beefing up the benefits of its Prime subscription program because CEO Andy Jassy wants to cut costs elsewhere in the company. Amazon has considered laying off about 18000 employees, freezing hiring and cutting some projects. However, Jassy said Amazon intends to continue to seek long-term opportunities, including health care.

Vin Gupta, Amazon's chief medical officer, said the company's goal is to provide a pharmacy experience that is "fundamentally different" from the way pharmacies have existed in the past few decades.

RxPass does not provide insulin or special drugs, nor does it provide to people with Medicaid or Medicare. Gupta declined to say whether Amazon will expand its list of drugs available through RxPass in the future.

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