Pharmacy-benefit managers such as UnitedHealthcare Group Inc.’s (NYSE:UNH) Optum RX are poised to benefit from Amazon.com Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) withdrawal from selling pharmaceutical products, according to Leerick analyst Ana Gupte.
Amazon.com’s Business unit, which sells bulk items to companies, abandoned a plan to sell pharmaceutical products after weighing it last year, according to a report yesterday by CNBC, citing people familiar with the matter.
Amazon Business’s decision is partly because it failed to persuade hospitals to change the way they purchase products and cut out middlemen from the deals, CNBC said.
Another issue was that Amazon Business would have had to build an extensive logistics network that could accommodate drugs and other pharmaceutical products, which are sensitive to temperature, according to the report.
Leerick’s Gupte said in a research note that she also sees the news as positive for Cigna Corp.’s (NYSE:CI) deal to buy Express Scripts (NASDAQ:ESRX), Aetna Inc. (NYSE:AET), which has a partnership agreement with CVS Health Corp. (NYSE:CVS), and Anthem Inc.‘s (NYSE:ANTM) Ingenio Rx.
The analyst also cited US President Donald Trump’s planned speech on drug pricing and supply-chain reform on April 26 as potentially having a positive impact on pharmacy-benefit managers as well as drug distributors and biopharmaceutic companies.