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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

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you think the medications get to your local pharmacy?

Via climate controlled aircraft, distribution facilities, and relatively well ventilated delivery trucks? No step in the retail pharmacy supply chain involves routinely putting it in a small black box sitting out in the sun until you get home from work in the evening.

Perhaps in long term Amazon drones with climate controlled container could drop the medicine off.

Re: Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B

#212

This 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…

Jesus this is hyperbole...pure hyperbole.

Re: Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember when the eclipse was happening and they actually did a pretty good job of removing all glasses which weren't safe? They also recalled a number of good units, which only sowed confusion and anger among buyers. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2017/08/14/a... And it turns out some of the counterfeit glasses did get out to to buyers who thought they were purchasing legitimate units. https://www.r…

I tried doing a limited google search for any news about that story that occurred since November of last year and got 0 hits. Did the case die or is it that the media just doesn't care enough for there to be a single update to the story?

There's activity on the case (2:17-cv-2313-PMD) as recently as earlier this month, but you'll need a Lexis or PACER account to dig in and see what's up. But it doesn't look dead. Amazon is going to probably bury the plaintiffs in paperwork.

Re: Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B

#214

This 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…

Just found out about PillPack, would have given them a shot but I don't feel that I can now.

Re: Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B

#215
post #81

I interviewed at Pillpack years ago and was very impressed but didn't get the gig. They seemed to be solving a great problem for customers using multiple medicines. I am not sure the solution works well for the millions of us taking one pill every night, e.g the "pillpack" is wasteful. It also doesn't address this really annoying problem I have getting my daughter's ADD meds. These require a paper prescription that m…

I feel for you dads that have to wait in CVS/Walgreens. Hopefully the system gets easier for you guys. Maybe your doctors office could setup eRx but that does require certain software/money.

Re: Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B

#216

This 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…

> the rampant counterfeiting going on right under their nose.

This is news to me. Can you link an article about it?

Re: Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B

#217

Meanwhile, 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 profi…

> lots of teams working on lots of products, and if some of them don't pan out, that's OK

Basically the modern tech titan mantra. The only company out of the big 5 that isn't doing this is Apple.

Re: Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B

#218
Pharmacies and benefit management companies have become very consolidated in recent years. And from what I've seen (which I'll have to be cryptic about since I don't want to accidentally reveal personal information about myself or anyone I know), it's not been to the benefit of consumers. Big evil companies that make money by screwing over sick people have been doing the 80s slash-and-burn consolidation thing where good companies are bought, existing customers are screwed over, and some small fraction of the company is absorbed into the greater machine. Buy a good company, deny people their medication, then make money off the difference until the customers leave for another company, then finally buy that one and repeat the cycle.

This means getting in there is going to be very profitable, and if amazon can get in there are use its existing scale they can get quite rich. There's now three benefit management companies that are in charge of altruistically deciding what medications you can afford. On the one hand, Amazon breaking up this pathological oligopoly would be good for consumers, but if it's really a market structure thing we run the risk of there still being on three companies, but with Amazon instead of CVS, ExpressScripts, or United Health.

Re: Amazon buys PillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B

#220

i see a lot of comments here of people worrying about counterfeit pills distributed on Amazon. A counterfeit drug in USA is a ticket straight to jail, but a counterfeit mug or yoga mat isn't such a big deal. I wouldn't worry about it so much especially because it's not an open marketplace since Amazon will use Pillback as the distributor

People have some very naive views about how one of the most regulated industries in the world operates. A big pharmacy can't just buy drugs from a random internet source and give it to you based on how many users gave that seller positive feedback. I don't know how they think the pharmaceutical industry works in the US, but the idea that Amazon is going to start selling fake medicine is absurd.
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