Amazon Pharmacy Expands Same-Day Delivery to New York, Los Angeles

Amazon Pharmacy expanded its same-day delivery of prescription medication to New York City and the greater Los Angeles area.

These cities join five others in which this service is already available: Austin, Indianapolis, Miami, Phoenix and Seattle, Amazon said in a Tuesday (March 26) press release. In addition, the firm offers drone delivery in College Station, Texas.

Amazon Pharmacy plans to continue expanding its same-day delivery, reaching more than a dozen cities by the end of the year, according to the release.

“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 the release.

In each of the cities in which Amazon Pharmacy offers same-day delivery, both the filling of the prescriptions and the delivery of them are aided by artificial intelligence and other technologies, according to the release.

When a handwritten or online prescription comes in, generative AI performs fact-checking and other prep work, the release said. A pharmacist then verifies that the prescription has the right medicine, strength, dosage, quantity and address label.

In some sites, the fulfillment process also includes robotic arms that fill and label prescriptions and send them to a pharmacist for inspection, per the release.

For delivery, different sorts of vehicles may be used, the release said. For example, an eBike might be used for delivery in traffic-jammed Manhattan, while a Rivian all-electric van may be used in suburban Los Angeles.

Amazon Pharmacy’s same-day delivery aims to offer customers an alternative at a time when only 10% of U.S. pharmacy orders are delivered to patients’ homes and in which the industry standard for delivery speed is as many as two weeks, per the release.

“Amazon Pharmacy is tapping its world-class logistics network, along with a variety of cutting-edge technologies, to change that,” Dr. Vin Gupta, chief medical officer at Amazon Pharmacy, said in the release.

In another development, Amazon said March 13 that Amazon Pharmacy will serve as a third-party dispensing partner for LillyDirect, which is drugmaker Eli Lilly’s new healthcare platform for patients being treated for diabetes, migraines or obesity.