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Two Amazon executives who performed a formative position within the retail large’s push into well being care are departing.
TJ Parker and Elliot Cohen, the co-founders of prescription drug startup PillPack, will go away Amazon on the finish of this month, in keeping with a publish on Parker’s LinkedIn profile. Amazon purchased PillPack in 2018 for about $750 million.
After the acquisition, Parker and Cohen helped steer the launch of Amazon Pharmacy, the corporate’s on-line pharmacy for delivering prescription drugs within the U.S. Each Parker and Cohen served as vice presidents of pharmacy up till lately, after they had been shifted to consulting roles, Axios reported.
“I am writing to allow you to all know that Elliot and I are shifting on from PillPack and Amazon on the finish of the month,” Parker wrote. “Out of all the things, it is the people who we met alongside the best way and that joined us on this journey that we’ll keep in mind most fondly, and we’ll miss you all.”
Parker and Cohen co-founded PillPack in 2013. Parker, whose dad was a pharmacist, attended pharmacy college in Boston. He met Cohen, who was in enterprise college at MIT. PillPack began serving clients in 2014, and Parker’s dad joined as one of many firm’s first pharmacists.
Amazon has accelerated its push into well being care in recent times, although not all of its efforts have been profitable. The pharmacy enterprise struggled to realize traction, and Amazon lately introduced it will shutter its telehealth service Amazon Care after discovering it wasn’t a “full sufficient providing” for patrons.
Early final 12 months, a three way partnership Amazon had shaped with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase to decrease health-care prices disbanded. The entity was referred to as Haven, and its preliminary anticipated entry into the health-care market had despatched shares of suppliers tumbling.
Nonetheless, Amazon is investing vital capital and assets within the house. In July, Amazon mentioned it will purchase One Medical for $3.9 billion, bringing in a community of boutique main care clinics. Amazon additionally operates a client diagnostics enterprise.
Amazon had reshuffled its well being management previous to Parker and Cohen’s departure. Final December, CNBC reported the corporate elevated its former Prime boss Neil Lindsay to supervise its well being efforts. John Love, who beforehand served as a vice chairman in Amazon’s Alexa division, was named vice chairman of Pharmacy and PillPack in January.
In a memo to the well being providers group on Monday, Lindsay referred to as the departure of Parker and Cohen “bittersweet” and thanked the PillPack founders for serving to develop the technique “to assist enhance the shopper well being care expertise.”
“Pushed by their imaginative and prescient and buyer obsession, the PillPack enterprise and capabilities grew to become the muse of Amazon Pharmacy,” Lindsay wrote.
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