Amazon Wants to Replace Your Pharmacy

Tae Kim at CNBC: Walgreens, CVS, and Rite-Aid Lose $11 Billion in Value After Amazon Buys Online Pharmacy PillPack.
Shares of drugstore companies are tumbling Thursday after Amazon announced it signed an agreement to acquire online pharmacy PillPack.

Rite Aid plunged 10.9 percent, Walgreens Boots Alliance sank 9.4 percent, and CVS Health fell 6.5 percent, respectively. The three companies collectively lost approximately $11 billion in market value on Thursday alone. Conversely, Amazon shares rose 2.1 percent, adding more than $16 billion in market value.

...Investors have long expected that Amazon would disrupt the pharmacy business.
I'm really beginning to loathe the word "disrupt."

Anyway. Listen, we need online pharmacies. Disabled people, people without cars in places without public transportation, people who do shift work in places without pharmacies with extended hours, and others all benefit from the service an online pharmacy can provide.

But we also need brick and mortar pharmacies. Chiefly for people who don't have internet access, but also for people who don't have a way to pay online, and for all the communities where places like Walgreens might be the closest thing to a grocery store, no less the closest thing to an affordable doctor's office if it's a location with a healthcare clinic.

If the pharmacy part of the business is significantly undermined, that might lead to the closure of stores that people need for other reasons.

And I am very concerned about that.


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