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 medication, medicines. It is a miscellaneous science as it ...

which is a subsidiary of

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

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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

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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 by 20%;

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by 16%; and

Walgreens Walgreens is an American pharmacy store chain. It is the second largest in the United States, behind CVS Pharmacy. As of March 2025, the company operated more than 8,700 stores in the U.S. Walgreens has been the subject of a number of lawsuit ...

and

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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. Some employers, such as

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, began only paying for prescriptions through Amazon Pharmacy following its launch through their

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plan.

Relationship to PillPack

The establishment of Amazon Pharmacy followed Amazon's acquisition of PillPack 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)