A couple of days ago when I heard that Amazon launched online pharmacy, I wrote a short post pointing out that Alexa, physical spaces like Whole Foods, and AWS would help Amazon disrupt the pharmacy industry. The CB Insights's research report on the same subject largely agrees with me and that was great to see!
If you are interested in Amazon's move into healthcare, I highly recommend you read the CB Insight's report. Two facts I learned from it was that Amazon forged a partnership earlier this year with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway to "build an independent healthcare company" and that Amazon is one of the investors of cancer diagnostic startup Grail. One thing that surprised me in the report was that "healthcare administrators far outpace physicians in growth." This is where Amazon can come in with a system that enables more streamlined back-end processes, which could replace administrative jobs.
What appeared as a foray into the pharmacy space now seems Amazon's single small task in a much bigger, long-planned project. I will keep watching how Amazon makes its move and slowly revolutionizes the healthcare sector. Looking at the arrow in Amazon's logo that connects a to z, I wonder where their limits are in the scope of products and services they want to provide.