For our North American readers, I hope you enjoyed the eclipse.
Worried about whether your eyesight is affected? You’re not alone. We used our trends tool to track this concern over time. It spikes every time there’s a celestial event, like Venus crossing the sun in 2012, and a partial solar eclipse in North America in 2014.
To allay your concerns, here’s a quick check to make sure you weren’t affected: If this text in the newsletter is looking gray or faded to you, you might be in trouble.
Insider info
Actually here, is that better? Then you’re probably OK.
In the past, we’ve talked about Amazon getting involved in the pharmaceutical benefits management (PBM) market. It makes a lot of sense — the PBM area is all about pooling leverage to negotiate better prices from suppliers. Amazon has the leverage already (aggregate customer base), the logistics piece, and brings a new element — price transparency. This is something that should be scary to anyone currently in this space.
Similar guidance from Morgan Stanley in May 2017 added that “CVS, Express Scripts, United Health/OptumRX and others have long-existing enterprise contracts and relationships that are likely to make it difficult for AMZN to break into without a PBM.” They also said that, “from a distribution standpoint, difficulties breaking into industry include a complex Healthcare system, warehouse operations that need to be tailored for pharmaceutical handling (temperature control, etc.), a complicated billing system, and a consolidated industry.”
Complex system, warehouse operations, new billing systems — all areas that Amazon has never encountered before…
There are definitely complexities to getting involved in healthcare — it’s not a walk in the park. But does that mean Amazon has no shot in healthcare? Let me know what you think.
Invitation-only for senior executives
At our conferences, we host breakfasts for senior level execs and they’ve become a surprise hit, getting consistently rave reviews.
As a result, we’re launching CB Insights Councils to bring together senior execs to discuss their biggest growth, strategic, and innovation challenges with peers.
The first of several 2-day in-person Council events will be held in NYC and Silicon Valley later this year.
Membership is by invite-only, and Councils Members must meet the following 3 criteria:
Must be SVPs, EVPs, presidents, or C-level executives
Must be at companies with $1 billion in revenue or more
Must be the head of their respective business unit or group or function
Members generally come from corporate strategy, innovation, venture, M&A, digital strategy, and technology.
