Amazon acquires online Pharmacy PillPack

 

Amazon has acquired Pillpack an online pharmacy group that delivers prescription drugs to the homes of patients with chronic ailments, sending investors deviating from traditional drug store chains.

Amazon plans to start selling prescription drugs in its quest to make itself a one-stop shop for everything from clothing, batteries to television, film, food and music.

The retailer has already captured more than $4 of every $10 spent online in the US, and Amazon move triggered a fall in shares of America’s biggest chemists on Wall Street.

Walgreen Boots Alliance, was down 10 per cent, in midday trading and CVS Health Corp, the US’s largest drugstore operator, dropped 7 per cent.

The purchase price is believed to be less than $1bn and the transaction is expected to close in the second half of this year, pending regulatory approval.

PhillPack was founded in 2013 and offers online patient services, where customers can sign up for the site and the company will send them prescription drugs in individual packages arranged by time and date. PhillPack’s CEO TJ Parker (32)  who co-founded the company with chief product officer Elliot Cohen (35). PhillPack was last valued at $361 million after a round of funding in 2016.

PhillPack’s visionary team has a combination of a lot of pharmacy expertise and a focus on technology according to Jeff Wilke, Amazon CEO of Worldwide Consumer.  He also said “PillPack is meaningfully improving its customers’ lives, and we want to help them continue making it easy for people to save time, simplify their lives and feel healthier. We’re excited to see what we can do together on behalf of customers over time.”

PillPack has a license to operate in all 50 state in the US and has other accreditations such as URAC AND VIPPS. PhillPack’s PharmacyOS – the system it has built that forms the basis of the company – is a platform that helps manage patient data and figure out how to balance meds together in safe doses for its customers.