CVS Vigour CEO Larry Merlo said he doesn’t lie awake at night worrying with Amazon but he does want to make sure he’s not leaving any room for disruption.
What Merlo does annoyance about is how CVS can meet the needs of its customers, he said Monday in an interview with David Rubenstein, president of the Commercial Club of Washington, D.C. The company spends a lot of time listening to its customers to make out what they’re not happy about and filling their unmet demands, he said.
“So that’s what we focus on as an organization, with the goal being: Don’t become any white space for Amazon to disrupt,” Merlo said.
Amazon purchase its way into the prescription drug delivery business with a $1 billion property of online pharmacy company PillPack. The move spooked Wall Avenue and shaved about $12.8 billion in market value from drugstores CVS, Walgreens Boots Coalition and Rite Aid.
PillPack sorts a person’s medicines into clear pouches with brands explaining what’s inside and when the person should take them. Merlo rumoured it’s a “very niche product” since it’s designed for people with lasting conditions who take multiple drugs every day.
CVS said it offers a almost identical multi-dose-packaging product that incorporates a proprietary dosing schedule technology.
“We get that capability today,” Merlo said. “And listen, with the getting of PillPack, there’s nothing proprietary about their technology. It’s off the shelf.”
CVS is maddening to become a disruptive force itself with its roughly $69 billion object of health insurer Aetna. With the deal, CVS wants to manage inveterate conditions such as diabetes at its MinuteClinics. They also want to someone a wide berth bad people into these walk-in clinics and away from sundry expensive sites such as emergency rooms.
The Department of Justice behind week gave the deal preliminary approval. CVS still needs brilliances’ approval. Merlo said Monday they’re in the “home stretch” of that function.