“They will not come in an industry so complicated as our industry,” Walgreens Pessina said of Amazon in an interview with Forbes Media executive vice president Moira Forbes. There have been reports CVS wants to buy health insurance giant Aetna, for example while Walgreens has formed various new partnerships with health plans like UntiedHealth Group's OptumRx pharmacy benefit manager. And it’s the physicians in the health plan networks who write the prescriptions that Amazon would need to become a pharmacy growth story. It might be too expensive for Amazon if the healthcare industry continues to consolidate into larger players. The “only way” for Amazon “to enter our space would be to buy or to team up,” Walgreens Pessina said Wednesday evening at Forbes Healthcare Summit.

Source: Forbes November 29, 2017 23:24 UTC