Amazon on Tuesday introduced a brand new prescription perk for U.S. Prime members, hoping to spice up subscriptions and entice customers to its pharmacy service.

The add-on, known as RxPass, will enable Prime members to get as many medicine as they want from an inventory of fifty generic drugs to deal with greater than 80 widespread power situations, resembling hypertension, nervousness and diabetes. The service prices $5 a month per particular person, and supply is free.

Amazon has pushed deeper into well being care in recent times. The corporate launched its personal on-line pharmacy in 2020, a service that was born out of its acquisition of PillPack in 2018. Amazon launched, then shuttered, a telehealth service known as Amazon Care, and introduced in July it will purchase boutique major care supplier One Medical.

Amazon additionally provides a Prime prescription financial savings profit, which provides a reduction of as much as 80% on generic drugs and as much as 40% on brand-name prescriptions.

Amazon is beefing up perks for its Prime subscription program as CEO Andy Jassy seems to be to chop prices elsewhere within the firm. Amazon has eyed shedding about 18,000 workers, whereas it froze hiring in its company workforce and axed some tasks. Nonetheless, Jassy has stated Amazon intends to maintain pursuing long-term alternatives, together with well being care.

The e-retailer faces competitors in pharmacy from the likes of CVS, Walgreens and Walmart. Amazon hasn’t stated how its on-line pharmacy providing has fared since launch. An August report from Morgan Stanley discovered Amazon Pharmacy did not rank as a high perk for Prime members, based mostly on a survey of customers, based on Enterprise Insider.

Amazon’s chief medical officer Vin Gupta stated the corporate is aiming to ship a pharmacy expertise that’s “basically totally different” from how pharmacies have existed during the last a number of many years.

“That is nonetheless day one for us the place we’re at our starting levels right here, however we acknowledge that change is required,” Gupta stated in an interview. “That is what sufferers throughout the nation are telling us, and that is what Amazon is responding to.”

RxPass does not supply insulin or specialty drugs, and it is not obtainable for folks on Medicaid or Medicare. Gupta declined to say whether or not Amazon will broaden the listing of medicines supplied by means of RxPass sooner or later.

Roughly 150 million individuals are on at the very least one of many drugs included within the preliminary RxPass formulary, he stated.

— CNBC’s Bertha Coombs contributed to this text.