Blink Health launches app to help consumers find prescription drug discounts

By Aditi Pai
02:50 pm
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New York City-based Blink Health, an app and online service that helps consumers find low prices for generic prescription drugs, launched today with backing from Eight Partners and Burch Creative Capital.

The company’s app and website provide consumers with cheap drug prices whether they have insurance or not. More than 60,000 US pharmacies, including Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, Wal-Mart, and Duane Reade, accept Blink discounts. According to Blink Health, 50 percent of the drugs listed in its database are priced at $10 or less for 30 tablets.

Blink works with group purchasing organizations (GPOs) to negotiate cheaper medication prices with pharmacies. The company receives a percentage of the savings that it creates on medication transactions.

"Nobody should ever be forced to skip a dose of medicine or leave a prescription behind at the pharmacy counter because they can't afford it," Blink Health Founder and CEO Geoffrey Chaiken said in a statement. "Our goal with Blink Health is to provide all Americans with the best prices for generic prescriptions, regardless of their insurance status. These prices have always existed for people with the best insurance plans, but Blink Health is making them accessible to all Americans for the first time.”

Users who want to use Blink purchase a prescription through the service and are given a Blink voucher, which they can show to the pharmacy to get the prescription discount. 

There are a few other companies that also offer prescription discount services.

A few months ago, Oration launched a mobile offering that helps employees save money on prescriptions. The company’s service, called OrationRx, helps self insured employers save money by identifying the lowest-priced medications for employees. Oration said it has analyzed over $1 billion in prescription drug purchases to find users the best price for their medications.

Another company working to provide users with cheaper prescriptions, RxRevu, raised $540,000 in 2014. RxRevu has catalogued thousands of generic drugs to help users save money when buying medications.

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