Amazon Online Pharmacy PillPack Nears Debut

PillPack, the online pharmacy acquired by Amazon in 2018 for $1 billion, is almost ready to make its debut on the marketplace, according to reports.

The eCommerce giant recently added a page for the pharmacy, with sign-up instructions and a video about how it works. The pharmacy will sort and ship medications all across the country.

Amazon has been steadily expanding into the healthcare field, and recently added HIPAA-compliant features to Alexa. The company has also partnered with Berkshire-Hathaway and JPMorgan on a healthcare initiative called Haven.

“We want to change the way people experience healthcare so that it is simpler, better and lower-cost,” Dr. Atul Gawande, Haven’s CEO, said in a statement in March, according to CNBC. “We’ll start small, learn from the experience of patients and continue to expand to meet their needs.”

The company also showed off a website with more details about the venture, including a number of areas of focus such as easier navigation of the healthcare system and access to affordable treatments and prescription drugs.

The website also announced Haven aims to work with clinicians and insurance companies to improve the overall healthcare system, and that the venture is open to working with existing players such as insurers, providers and pharmacy benefit managers instead of uprooting them.

The website also includes a letter in which Gawande explains that the company knows tackling the issues with healthcare will “take time, and we’ll need the help of others, but we will tackle problems step-by-step and make sure that patients remain our top priority.”

He also outlined Haven’s guiding principles, which include being an advocate for the patient, as well as for the clinicians, industry leaders, innovators, policymakers and others who are trying to improve care and costs; creating new solutions to change systems, technologies, contracts, policy and whatever else impacts better healthcare; and ensuring that Haven’s work “has high impact and is sustainable.”