This is huge. If I were into pharma business I would be very worried for my business.
Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B
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Re: Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B
#12Meanwhile, CVS + Walgreens lost $6B in market cap on the news Amazon is moving directly into pharmacy space. It's crazy how competitive Wall Street views Amazon moving into a market; have there been examples of Amazon making a large purchase/move but completely failing? (sure there are, just not coming me off the top of my head)
They invested $175M in LivingSocial, rebranded it "Amazon Local", then killed it off.
Re: Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B
#13Just another step in dominance for Amazon. Pretty soon you will be able to upload your prescriptions to Amazon and Prime Now will deliver within an hour, for $8.99
So now I have to worry about counterfeit pills showing up from Amazon? I’m not overly concerned about their dominance anymore. There are eventually going to be regulated.
A marketplace and something like pharmacy are completely different. They will still get their drugs from known producers, and on the generics side you'd have things like teva.
Re: Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B
#14Re: Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
So now I have to worry about counterfeit pills showing up from Amazon? I’m not overly concerned about their dominance anymore. There are eventually going to be regulated.
A marketplace and something like pharmacy are completely different. They will still get their drugs from known producers, and on the generics side you'd have things like teva.
I can already get my pharmacy prescriptions from mail order fulfillment houses (up to 90 day supplies even depending on the prescription). What does Amazon offer on top of that? I’ve never not been within 15-20 minutes of a Walgreens or CVS when I needed a prescription immediately, so I don’t see what benefit Amazon brings to this.
They’re (Amazon) not faster, I don’t care if they’re cheaper (insurance coverage), and I don’t trust them (supply chain, motivations, etc).
Re: Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B
#16Meanwhile, CVS + Walgreens lost $6B in market cap on the news Amazon is moving directly into pharmacy space. It's crazy how competitive Wall Street views Amazon moving into a market; have there been examples of Amazon making a large purchase/move but completely failing? (sure there are, just not coming me off the top of my head)
1999 Amazon when after Ebay with Amazon Auctions, about the same time Amazon zShops (now Marketplace) started. Back then a big bet in terms of money and resources that failed.
https://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/04/early-amazon-auctions.h...
Re: Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B
#17Meanwhile, CVS + Walgreens lost $6B in market cap on the news Amazon is moving directly into pharmacy space. It's crazy how competitive Wall Street views Amazon moving into a market; have there been examples of Amazon making a large purchase/move but completely failing? (sure there are, just not coming me off the top of my head)
All the time.
They tried to make a move into retail registers to compete with Square, and failed. They shuttered Amazon register in 2015: https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/amazon-shutting-do...
They tried to take on Etsy with Amazon Handmade which bombed Etsy stock, but Handmade has gone pretty much nowhere, except some re-branding this year.
People just forget Amazon's failed ventures, even fairly high profile ones, because there are so many, and the hits sometimes so large (like AWS).
Quoting myself from April:
> Amazon's ethos of "Announce fast, Release fast, if it fails, oh well" is intentional. From Bezos' point of view, this is actually a feature. In a shareholder letter in 2016, he called Amazon "The best place in the world to fail." He wants lots of teams working on lots of products, and if some of them don't pan out, that's OK. This has lead to a lot of successes, but also a number of small headaches for consumers who use products that are quickly discontinued and (charitably) forgotten.
Re: Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B
#18This is interesting because Amazon isn't exactly known for supply chain integrity. Who here hasn't received fakes from Amazon? If you rely on a specific medication for your health, is Amazon a brand you trust to deliver it? How long until they start commingling pills and shipping random counterfeit/fake product to users?
Hope it never happens but if they do with pharmaceuticals what they did with everything else they sell, it's only a matter of time before users are physically harmed.
Let's be optimistic though, I hope this helps them finally get their shit together and control the rampant counterfeiting going on right under their nose.
Re: Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B
#19Just another step in dominance for Amazon. Pretty soon you will be able to upload your prescriptions to Amazon and Prime Now will deliver within an hour, for $8.99
So now I have to worry about counterfeit pills showing up from Amazon? I’m not overly concerned about their dominance anymore. There are eventually going to be regulated.
The way they're going they're going to announce Amazon Government soon, and solve that problem. Talk about cloud feudalism turning into real feudalism.
The UK already has a company that does the government loves to outsource things to: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/jul/29/serco-bigge...
So I imagine you'd call about your local trash pickup or a kindergarten and you'd get put in the call center telephone queue.
Re: Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B
#20This is interesting because Amazon isn't exactly known for supply chain integrity. Who here hasn't received fakes from Amazon? If you rely on a specific medication for your health, is Amazon a brand you trust to deliver it? How long until they start commingling pills and shipping random counterfeit/fake product to users? Hope it never happens but if they do with pharmaceuticals what they did with everything else they…
Maybe this is related to Amazon's health venture? Both it and Pillpack are based in Boston after all.