PHARMACIES must be agile and open to change if they are to withstand the online infiltration of retail giant Amazon into the pharmaceutical space, warns Secretary of North East London Local Pharmaceutical Committee (NEL LPC), Hemant Patel.
"I do not believe for one second within the network that the fittest will survive," Patel said last Tue at the British pharmaceutical wholesaler, Sigma's annual conference in Cebu, Philippines.
"The biggest pharmacies will not necessarily survive.
"Only the most agile pharmacies will survive."
Amazon filed to trademark "Amazon Pharmacy" in Australia and the UK, with the intention to cover a number of goods and services, including "pharmacy services...health care services, and preparation of prescriptions in pharmacies" (PD 15 Jan).
"The current community pharmacy model, not the network but the model, is in terminal and accelerating decline," Patel said, saying the entire network of community pharmacy could collapse if it remained "reluctant to change".
Patel also highlighted the need for pharmacies to work together, commenting that the current industry climate was about "survival of the collaborators".
Former Pharmacy Guild of Australia Executive Director, David Quilty, expressed a similar sentiment shortly after Amazon announced it would purchase PillPack (PD 03 Jul 2018), saying community pharmacies needed to "genuinely and optimistically embrace change".
He went on to say that online pharmacy "can go close to replicating the human touch that is the hallmark of community pharmacy" (PD 12 Jul 2018).
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