This Company Is Trying To Disrupt a $480B Industry By Providing a Better Customer Experience

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The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

Most people can relate to having a bad experience at a retail pharmacy with long waits, out-of-stock medications, and poor customer service becoming all too common.

And for patients that want to talk directly with the pharmacist about their medication - good luck. Between manually counting out pills, giving Covid shots, and countless other job duties, most retail chain pharmacists don’t have enough hours in the day.

In the age of technology and on-demand services, one company is saying it’s time for the retail pharmacy industry to step up its game.

Meet NowRx - a chain of local pharmacies in California and Arizona that is using proprietary software and robotics inside their “micro-pharmacies” to make filling prescriptions more convenient and hassle-free.

The company holds a 5 star Yelp rating from customers at every single location as of this writing and is known for its no strings attached free same day delivery service.

Who Is NowRx?

In 2015, one of the founders, Cary Breese, noticed how inefficient it was to get a prescription and thought there had to be a better way of doing things. Together he and his Cofounder Sumeet Sheokand researched the retail pharmacy industry and enlisted the help of experts to make that dream a reality. 5 years later, NowRx has 8 pharmacies across multiple states delivering prescriptions to more than 35,000 customers.

The company says the process to get started is just like any other pharmacy. If you have a new prescription, the doctor can fax or e-prescribe directly to NowRx so it can fill the medication and deliver it. If you have an existing prescription and need a refill, the process is even easier. You can text the pharmacy or fill out an online form on their website in seconds. Once the company has received the prescription, a trained pharmacy technician reaches out to collect an insurance copay and set up a delivery. Finally, a HIPAA trained pharmacy employee delivers the medication in hours for no additional charge.

So how does the company make money if they don’t charge for delivery?

Like every pharmacy, NowRx makes money through insurance reimbursement, patient copays, or “cash pay” on the medications it dispenses. However, the company’s proprietary tech and less expensive “micro-pharmacies” allow it to operate with significantly lower overhead compared to traditional pharmacies.

This may sound similar to mail order pharmacies, but there is a key difference. NowRx has local brick-and-mortar pharmacies that any patient can call or visit if they have questions for a pharmacist, which means NowRx is able to maintain a level of personalized service that mail pharmacies lack.

The company says it likes to think of itself as offering the convenience of Amazon AMZN mixed with the personal service of a local independent pharmacy.

Rebuilding an Outdated Industry?

Retail pharmacy is a massive industry in the United States with some of the larger names such as CVS Pharmacy Inc. CVS or Walgreens Co. WBA dominating the landscape.

However, despite their dominance, the pandemic changed the expectations of many Americans for how they fill prescriptions as well as the level of service they expect from their pharmacy.

While the company is still relatively young, if NowRx’s hybrid approach of local tech-enabled “micro-pharmacies” and free same day delivery are able to deliver on the promise of a better pharmacy, the company could be the new model for how retail pharmacies operate moving forward. Only time will tell.

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.