The Silicon Review ^Asia

Amazon takes over PillPack, an online Medical pharmacy based in the USA, for $1billion. The announcement was made public on Thursday.

The acquisition gives the e-commerce giant the ability to ship prescriptions around the country, and overnight, makes it a direct threat to the more than $400 billion pharmacy business.

“PillPack’s visionary team has a combination of deep pharmacy experience and a focus on technology,” says Jeff Wilke, Amazon CEO of Worldwide Consumer, in a statement.

“We have wrapped up the deal by paying $1 billion in cash for PillPack,” he said.

The online Medical pharmacy pre-sorts medications and delivers them to customers in 49 U.S. states, excluding Hawaii. Now, with the acquisition of the pharmacy start-up, people will now able to buy medicines and any other medical related products through the Amazon website.

The acquisition adds to recent moves by Amazon to wade deeper into health care, from pushing supplies for hospitals to helping form a non-profit aimed at addressing rising costs.

Boston-based PillPack, which was started in 2013, has raised $118 million from venture capitalists including Atlas Venture, Accel Partners and CRV. Its co-founder and CEO TJ Parker said in November that it had tens of thousands of customers and was on track for more than $100 million in annual revenue, The Wall Street Journal reports.