Startup delivers birth control pills on-demand

Nurx is an app that helps deliver free contraceptive medication to women in San Francisco.

Back in 2012 a London-based service started delivering the morning after pill by courier. Now a new app in San Francisco is offering birth control medication delivery to Californians.

Nurx delivers contraceptive pills for free for women who have insurance — or USD 15 for those without it — and is also planning to offer Truvada, a drug treatment that has been used to prevent HIV transmission. The service’s bike couriers in the area can deliver the medication within two hours.

Nurx’s app uses simple health questions that are sent to a pharmacist, who is then able to send the prescription to customers. The pills are administered by professional physicians, and Nurx offers automatic refills to renew prescriptions.

In their own words, Nurx says the cost of a visit to doctors can be a major barrier to birth control. They say they want to improve access to healthcare, giving more women more control over their body.

What other types of medication could be made more accessible via an on-demand model?