A employee delivers Amazon packages in San Francisco on Oct. 24, 2024.
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Amazon on Thursday announced Prime members can access recent fixed pricing for treatment of conditions like erectile dysfunction and men’s hair loss, its latest effort to compete with other direct-to-consumer marketplaces equivalent to Hims & Hers Health and Ro.
Shares of Hims & Hers closed down greater than 24% on Thursday, the corporate’s worst day on record.
Amazon said in a blog post that Prime members can see the associated fee of a telehealth visit and their desired treatment before they determine to proceed with take care of five common issues. Patients can access treatment for anti-aging skincare starting at $10 a month; motion sickness for $2 per use; erectile dysfunction at $19 a month; eyelash growth at $43 a month, and men’s hair loss for $16 a month by utilizing Amazon’s savings profit Prime Rx at checkout.
Amazon acquired primary care provider One Medical for roughly $3.9 billion in July 2022, and Thursday’s announcement builds on its existing pay-per-visit telehealth offering. Video visits through the service cost $49, and messaging visits cost $29 where available. Users can get treatment for greater than 30 common conditions, including sinus infection and pink eye.
Medications filled through Amazon Pharmacy are eligible for discounted pricing and might be delivered to patients’ doors in standard Amazon packaging. Prime members can pay for the consultation and drugs, but there aren’t any additional fees, the blog post said.
Analysts at Bank of America downgraded shares of Hims & Hers from buy to underperform on Thursday, citing Amazon’s push into hair loss and erectile dysfunction markets. The analysts said Hims & Hers generates greater than 80% gross margins from its core erectile dysfunction and hair loss offerings, and estimate that Amazon’s medications for those conditions are about 42% and 29% cheaper respectively.
Because of this, the analysts said they think Amazon will limit the costs that Hims & Hers can charge and can hinder the corporate’s ability to draw recent customers.
“While Amazon may not offer the identical personalized products, its wide net (we estimate 150MM Americans have Prime) creates a serious competitive threat for HIMS, in our view,” they wrote in a Thursday note.
Amazon has been attempting to break into the lucrative health-care sector for years. The corporate launched its own online pharmacy in 2020 following its acquisition of PillPack in 2018. Amazon introduced, and later shuttered, a telehealth service called Amazon Care, in addition to a line of health and wellness devices.
The corporate has also discontinued a secretive effort to develop an at-home fertility tracker, CNBC reported Wednesday.
— CNBC’s Annie Palmer contributed to this report.
