Amazon opens online drugstore

Amazon has launched its own drugstore that will deliver prescription medications.

Jonathan Shieber and Ingrid Lunden from TechCrunch reported:

A little over two years after its $753 million acquisition of the prescription medicine delivery service PillPack, Amazon has finally launched Amazon Pharmacy, its online and mobile prescription medication ordering and fulfillment service.

Using a secure pharmacy profile, customers can add their insurance information, manage prescriptions and choose payment options all through Amazon’s  service.

Business Insider’s Emily Graffeo wrote:

Amazon’s digital pharmacy could be a trillion-dollar global opportunity for the e-commerce giant, and could bring in noticeably more profit than previous acquisitions, according to D.A. Davidson’s Tom Forte.

“My question for Amazon is ‘What took you so long?’ I think this is a great move by Amazon,” the senior research analyst told Bloomberg Surveillance on Tuesday. 

He added that a company like Amazon, that currently has a market capitalization of over $1.5 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 184.62, and a share price up 71% year-to-date, needs to make deals like this to sustain its growth.

Andria Cheng from Forbes warned the move would endanger other drugstores:

While nearly 70% of consumers who regularly take prescription medication said they pick up prescriptions at their local pharmacies with 29% saying they get it by mail, almost three-fifths of Amazon Prime members said they would consider having their prescriptions delivered by Amazon if the service was to became available, according to a Cowen & Co.’s COWN 0.0% survey of 2,500 consumers in September.

The survey found some 42% of consumers take prescription medication regularly for an ongoing condition.