NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Amazon’s latest revelations showcase how it wants to own a sector worth trillions. But we have the technology to innovate in the pharmaceutical space before Amazon comes and does it for us, writes Nnamdi Oranye.

Amazon’s disruption in the retail and logistics space is unprecedented and in need of no introduction. However, in its typical style, while everyone has been focusing on what we perceive to be its core business, it has quietly been thinking of swallowing a completely different industry – in this case, pharmaceuticals.

I have the great privilege of being invited to conferences and think-tanks all over the world, and towards the latter end of 2016 I started noticing Amazon making certain moves that made me reiterate several times and in several places that it will be moving into this space. I was met with some scepticism. After returning from the Forum on Public-Private Partnerships for Global Health and Safety in Washington D.C. a few weeks ago, where I raised the point again, I opened up my news sources the day after landing back in South Africa to find CNBC had just confirmed what I suspected all along. Amazon had announced that it will be hiring a general manager to pave its path for entering into the pharmaceutical space.