Amazon acquired Health Navigator

Amazon.com Inc. has acquired Health Navigator, a medical technology startup, in an effort to bolster its health care offerings for employees.

The start-up will be wrapped into a clinic for workers that launched last month at the company’s Seattle-based headquarters. Called Amazon Care, the program offers virtual and in-person consultations, and delivery of prescriptions to employees’ offices and homes.

The company’s ambitions in health care have been the subject of fevered speculation in the industry and among investors well versed in Amazon’s record of disrupting established industries. Amazon has partnered with Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. to launch Haven, a non-profit working on ways to halt the rise in employee health-care costs.

Separately, the company is working to build on nascent businesses that sell to health-care providers and consumers. Amazon last year bought PillPack, an online pharmacy. It also sells office and medical supplies through its Amazon Business program.

Amazon acquires online pharmacy PillPack

Amazon is buying online Pharmacy PillPack – a move that could disrupt the drug store business. PillPack has pharmacy licenses in all 50 states. The company delivers medications to customers in pre-sorted doses designed to make it easier for people to take multiple medications a day.

Although brick-and-mortar stores might feel the effects of Amazon's competition, the biggest battles will likely be fought by the mail-order pharmacies, which generally serve patients with chronic conditions such as heart disease that may require drugs to control blood pressure, cholesterol and other problems.

Some of the largest mail order pharmacies are controlled by pharmacy benefit managers such as Express Scripts (ESRX.O) and CVS, which offer financial and other incentives to patients to fill their prescriptions with them. PillPack holds pharmacy licenses in all 50 states and is authorized to deliver in 49 states and is an in-network pharmacy for major Medicare Part D plans.

For consumers, it could be good news if the deal nudges the pharmacy sector into a heated competition for customers, potentially driving down drug prices. Prescription drug spending tops $450 billion annually. Amazon's acquisition of PillPack marks another development in the company's rivalry with Walmart, which had been rumored to be weighing an acquisition of PillPack.