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Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos presents the company's first smartphone, the Fire Phone, on June 18, 2014 in Seattle, Washington. The much-anticipated device is available for pre-order today and is available exclusively with AT&T service.
We just got another hint that Amazon is getting into healthcare.
Samantha Liss at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Amazon has been approved for wholesale pharmacy licenses for at least 12 states. That's based on regulatory filings reviewed by the Post-Dispatch.
While the licenses don't necessarily indicate that Amazon is going to start to sell prescription drugs, the news was enough to make the stocks of some of the major players in the pharmaceutical supply chain move.
- CVS, which owns pharmacies as well as operates a pharmacy benefit manager was down 4%. Walgreens was also down 3%.
- Express Scripts, one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers, was down 3%.
- The news especially hit drug wholesalers Cardinal Health (down 4%), Amerisource Bergen (down 5%), and McKesson (down 5%).
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This isn't the first time the prescription drug industry has been concerned about Amazon entering the pharma business. CNBC reported in May that Amazon is seriously considering entering the pharmacy business, leading to speculation about what that might look like.
CNBC in October reported that Amazon's expected to make a decision about whether it's getting into the prescription drug business by Thanksgiving.