{"id":2418,"date":"2018-07-09T18:59:03","date_gmt":"2018-07-10T01:59:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/?p=2418"},"modified":"2018-07-09T18:59:03","modified_gmt":"2018-07-10T01:59:03","slug":"amazon-buys-pillpack-and-drug-chains-start-to-worry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/?p=2418","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Buys PillPack and Drug Chains Start To Worry"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \"Scattered\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Amazon has made their first major move into the prescription business, and the major drug chains are getting nervous.\u00a0 After they bought PillPack last week, the 3 major chains lost 7% (Walgreens and CVS) and 3% (Rite-Aid) on their stock price right off the bat.<\/p>\n

While it’s still not a certainty that they will impact the RX business as much as they have other industries, they will definitely make a dent and I wouldn’t bet against them.\u00a0 I’ve also heard that at least at one of the major chains PillPack has already begun calling customers and some of them are moving their prescriptions away from the chain store.\u00a0 And the sale isn’t even final yet.\u00a0 Does anyone doubt that Amazon had this planned for a while?<\/p>\n

Source:\u00a0 Techcrunch.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0A week after\u00a0appointing a CEO<\/a>\u00a0for its healthcare joint venture with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan, Amazon today\u00a0announced an acquisition<\/a>\u00a0that underscores how it also hopes to have a more direct \u2014 and more commercial \u2014 role in the world of healthcare in the coming years. The company has purchased\u00a0PillPack<\/a>, an online pharmacy the lets users buy medications in pre-made doses.<\/em><\/p>\n

Terms of the deal have not been disclosed by\u00a0Amazon,\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0but sources close to the deal say it was for just under $1 billion. PillPack had\u00a0reportedly<\/a>\u00a0been in talks with Walmart \u2014 one of Amazon\u2019s big rivals \u2014 for an acquisition, and we confirmed that this was indeed the case. \u201cBut someone\u201d \u2014 that is, Amazon \u2014 \u201ccame along offering more.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

According to\u00a0PitchBook<\/a>, PillPack was last valued at $361 million after a round of funding in 2016.\u00a0This deal is expected to close in the second half of 2018.<\/em><\/p>\n

The move (and that reported valuation hike) signal how heated the e-health market is becoming, and also how Amazon views it as a key frontier in its bid to be the go-to place for anything a consumer (or\u00a0medical organization<\/a>) might want or need in the area of healthcare.<\/em><\/p>\n

The might of Amazon in commerce plays a massive role in how the market is poised to develop: it buying the company is not only a signal of how\u00a0PillPack\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0will likely get scaled out (not least through Amazon\u2019s healthcare JV) but also because of how other pharmacy companies will have to respond. So far, the market is punishing the rest for not already being where Amazon appears to be going.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Once “tiny little” @<\/span>PillPack<\/span><\/a> has instantly shaved more than $13B off the market cap of the entire US pharmacy \/ drugstore industry via acquisition by @<\/span>amazon<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

Sally Shin<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u2714<\/b><\/span><\/span>@sallyshin<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
Replying to @sallyshin<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Walgreens down 7%<\/em>
\nRite Aid down 3% <\/em>
\nCVS Health down 7%<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cPillPack\u2019s visionary team has a combination of deep pharmacy experience and a focus on technology,\u201d says\u00a0<\/u>Jeff Wilke<\/u>,\u00a0<\/u>Amazon<\/u>\u00a0CEO of Worldwide Consumer, in a\u00a0news release<\/a>. \u201cPillPack is meaningfully improving its customers\u2019 lives, and we want to help them continue making it easy for people to save time, simplify their lives, and feel healthier. We\u2019re excited to see what we can do together on behalf of customers over time.\u201d<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

PillPack has a license to operate in all 50 states in the U.S. and has other accreditations such as URAC AND VIPPS, but it doesn\u2019t seem to be operational in international markets. Its PharmacyOS \u2014 the system it has built that forms the basis of the company \u2014 is a platform that helps manage patient data and figure out how to balance meds together in safe doses for its customers.<\/em><\/p>\n

The challenge that the company is addressing is very real: The US is a huge consumer of medicines, and some of that has tipped into a large epidemic of abuse. While there are a lot of things that will have to happen to tackle that in the long and short term, at least helping to provide controlled doses of what patients are being prescribed is one aspect of how to tackle the problem.<\/em><\/p>\n

It looks like\u00a0TJ Parker, co-founder and CEO of PillPack, will be staying on to run the business.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cPillPack makes it simple for any customer to take the right medication at the right time, and feel healthier,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cTogether with\u00a0<\/u>Amazon<\/u>, we are eager to continue working with partners across the healthcare industry to help people throughout the U.S. who can benefit from a better pharmacy experience.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

PillPack, based in Manchester, New Hampshire, started out at Techstars in Boston in 2013, when it was still led by Katie Rae, and over the years it had raised $123 million with investors, including Accel, Accomplice, Charles River Ventures and Menlo Ventures.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Amazon has made their first major move into the prescription business, and the major drug chains are getting nervous.\u00a0 After they bought PillPack last week, the 3 major chains lost 7% (Walgreens and CVS) and 3% (Rite-Aid) on their stock price right off the bat. While it’s still not a certainty Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2418"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2420,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418\/revisions\/2420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}