Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is a company that’s never content with the day-to-day. Despite dominating online sales and expanding into the grocery business through its acquisition of Whole Foods, the tech giant continues to look for ways to expand into new industries.
Its most recent venture: the pharmaceutical industry. The company purchased PillPack last week for a price of roughly $1 billion.
PillPack positions itself as a full-service pharmacy which looks to redefine the role that industry currently plays when it comes to providing medication to patients. The company delivers medication directly to a customer’s door, which could go hand in hand with Amazon’s Prime delivery service.
The online pharmacy also sorts medication and can coordinate automatic refills for its customers. At first glance, it’s easy to see how Amazon could integrate this company with its existing services and business model. In the long run, this could be the first step for Amazon toward being a big player in the lucrative pharmaceutical industry.
This is a great way for Amazon to continue to grow its business as it tries and be a one stop shop for everything ranging from electronics to groceries, and now to medication as well. It’s also another way it can try and wrestle away sales from one of its main competitors: Walmart Inc (NYSE:WMT).
With a price-to-earnings ratio of more than 200, Amazon has built its brand on continuing to innovate as it is always looking for new products and services to add to its portfolio. And while that might be a challenge for some companies, for Amazon it’s just part of its business model.
