Amazon contemplating lawsuit against Surescripts

Last week, it was reported that Amazon is contemplating a lawsuit against electronic prescribing company Surescripts, which has taken action to prevent the former from accessing its patient information. A lawsuit could complicate matters for both businesses.

This comes about a year after Amazon snatched up PillPack in a $753 million acquisition. PillPack, a pharmacy delivery service, receives comprehensive data indirectly from Surescripts, and uses the information to access patient medication lists, inform patients about potential safety risks, pinpoint duplicate medications and assist with refills. Surescripts is owned by potential PillPack competitors CVS and Express Scripts.

According to a CNBC report, PillPack will soon be blocked from accessing that data from third party company ReMy Health. Amazon’s pending lawsuit is designed to put the brakes on those efforts, with PIllPack allegedly sending a cease-and-desist letter to Surescripts.

Rather than contracting directly with Surescripts, Pillpack goes through ReMy for information on patient medication. ReMy collects raw data from Surescripts and sends a more polished version of it to clients through its application software. ReMy indicated last week that it would cease working with Pillpack, severing a relationship that began in 2017.