Amazon becomes a pharmacy. The e-commerce company led by Jeff Bezos goes one step further, confirming its worldwide dominance in the online sales market.
The new service is called PillPack by Amazon Pharmacy, is already active in the US while a pilot project has just launched in Bangalore, India with investors from Wall Street who are monitoring the situation closely. Europe could be the next destination of a plan born in 2018 following the 753 million dollar acquisition of PillPack, an online pharmacy that owns pharmaceutical licenses in the 50 American states and provides various types of personal care services.
How does Amazon Pharmacy work? In the USA, customers have the opportunity to receive over-the-counter medicines at home, but also medicines that require a doctor's prescription, in a very short time and without paying shipping costs. The company also provides guidance on how to take your medicines correctly and information on when and when they should be taken. A service, which needless to say, met with immediate success. In India though, second Reuters, the launch of Amazon Pharmacy would have sparked strong protests from pharmacists, who have raised many questions about the lack of control over purchases.
Amazon, however, continues on its way and is already targeting other territories. In January, before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic shook the whole world, the company also filed for trademark registration in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. The next – obligatory – step will be Europe.
We recall that in 2018 the giant led by Jeff Bezos also launched Amazon Comprehend Medical, a service that uses artificial intelligence and the cloud to analyze medical information and clinical analyses. The experimentation of Amazon Care, a virtual healthcare project for employees who work at the Seattle headquarters, began last September.
