Amazon threatens pharmaceuticals after buying PillPack retailer

Amazon.com Inc. is making its way into the heart of the American health care system. UU., Instantly shaking a prescription drug industry that is already in the midst of a wider transformation.

Insurance companies and drug benefit managers have entered into a series of agreements over the last few months, designed in part to counteract a possible big explosion in the Amazonian health world . But the decision of the online sales giant to buy PillPack, an online pharmacy, is rapidly accelerating the threat they pose to retailers, suppliers and middlemen.

In the immediate future, the measure represents a formidable challenge for Walgreens pharmacy chains, including Alliance Inc. and CVS Health Corp., the two largest pharmacy chains in the United States. Walgreens fell 8.5% to 10:49 in New York, while shares of CVS fell 8.9%.

"This allows Amazon to disrupt New York's major drugstore chains, and they have stopped bookstores, pet supplies, clothing and other large retailers," said Lisa Bielamowicz. Chairman of Gist Healthcare Consulting Firm

Amazon will pay about US $ 1 billion for Boston-based PillPack, according to a person familiar with the case.The transaction is expected to be finalized in the second half of 2018, according to a publication

The US prescription drug market is huge.In 2016, US consumers UU They spent 328.6 billion US dollars in prescription drugs, according to government data. achieved a presidential business figure of $ 59.5 billion last year, while Walgreens sold $ 57.8 billion worth of drugs in 2017.

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, after creating his original idea at the largest online retailer in the world, used internal engineering and acquisitions to infiltrate a growing number of companies. 39; businesses. He took over the $ 800 billion food industry with the purchase of Whole Foods last year and entered mainstream electronics with the creation of the Kindle e-reader and Echo voice-activated loudspeaker.

Bezos He stressed his frustration with a health care system characterized by rising costs for consumers and businesses and sometimes poor results and unnecessary complexity. Earlier this year, he and CEOs Warren Buffett and Jamie Dimon of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., respectively, agreed to form a new company to reshape the way companies manage workers' health benefits. .