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Amazon intensifies push into Australian pharmacy with trademark application
By Dominic Powell and Emma Koehn
June 1, 2020 — 3.55pm
Retail giant Amazon has intensified its push into Australia's highly competitive pharmaceuticals sector, brushing off industry opposition with a fresh trademark application for a range of private-label over-the-counter medications.
Amazon filed the application for the 'BasicCare' trademark on Friday and refers to Amazon-branded medication which shoppers can buy directly from the e-commerce giant. The move comes as Amazon faces a fight with the Pharmacy Guild of Australia over a previous application for the trademark 'Amazon Pharmacy', which it filed in January this year.
The guild, which lobbies on behalf of pharmacy owners across the country, has filed an objection with IP Australia arguing the multinational has no right to own the words "Amazon Pharmacy". The group said tight regulation of pharmacy operators meant such a trademark could only be used by trained pharmacists.
"Under Australian state and Territory law, only a pharmacist can own a pharmacy and consumers are entitled to be sure when they deal with a pharmacy that it is a pharmacy and not a business entity purporting to be a pharmacy," a spokesperson for the guild said.
According to a listing with IP Australia, the Pharmacy Guild has until this Thursday to provide grounds for objecting to the trademark registration.
The application for "Amazon Pharmacy" covered the use of the word relating to 10 different classes of goods and services, including a "pharmacy packaging service that aligns, sorts and packages a patient's medications by date and time into individual packets".
Amazon has a pharmacy retail service in the US which it expanded in 2019 after the billion-dollar acquisition of pharmacy startup PillPack. It offers pre-sorted medication packages containing individual daily doses.
Since January, Amazon has filed two more healthcare-related trademarks, BasicCare and Amazon Care, the latter of which is a telehealth and telemedicine service the company is trialling for its employees in Seattle.
Amazon's BasicCare product does not supply prescription medication, and Australian customers can already buy over-the-counter medication through the company's online store. However, a range of Amazon-owned medications would likely come at a lower cost than other branded products, putting pressure on pharmacists and manufacturers. The company's tagline for the product is "basic healthcare ... without having to pay for extras like expensive marketing".
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Amazon on the move
A Guild leader says the organisation will do “whatever it takes” to defend the current pharmacy model, as Amazon applies for another health trademark
Amazon has reportedly filed an application for the “BasicCare” trademark in Australia, which would apply to a range of over-the-counter medicines it owns.
Currently, Australians can buy other brands of some OTCs from Amazon’s local website.
The application for this trademark was filed just days before the Pharmacy Guild is due to lodge its statement of grounds for its opposition to the “Amazon Pharmacy” trademark, which was applied for earlier this year.
The Guild has until June 4 to lodge its statement of grounds and particulars.
Its Victorian branch president, Anthony Tassone, told the AJP that it will strongly oppose Amazon’s application for the Amazon Pharmacy trademark, and will continue to argue for pharmacist-only ownership.
“The pharmacist owned model of pharmacies in Australia has done and continues to serve the Australian community very well and particularly so during the recent challenges of the bushfire crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic,” Mr Tassone said.
“Community pharmacies across Australia kept their doors open and turned up every day and were there for their patients and communities – and the pharmacist owned ownership model was a big contributor to this.
“The Australian public trust their local pharmacist, are satisfied with the service they receive from their local pharmacy and are open to community pharmacies having a greater role in healthcare – particularly seen with a record number of flu vaccinations delivered by pharmacies this year.”
He said that in previous consumer surveys, Australians have shown a “clear” preference for health professionals owning their own practices.
Mr Tassone said the Guild was not opposed to change, but opposed to change in the ownership rules.
“COVID-19 has forced many businesses to innovate, adapt and change – with community pharmacy being no exception,” he said.
“More and more pharmacies are expanding their home delivery services for patients, having greater patient engagement through the use of technology which will only continue with the introduction of e-prescriptions.
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https://ajp.com.au/news/amazon-on-the-move/
It is hard to believe that with its very deep pockets that even the Pharmacy Guild can hold out in perpetuity. If Amazon is serious then change is coming – probably to the benefit of the consumer!
David.
7 comments:
Perhaps the guild might be of more use in assisting its members in how to compete with services like amazon. How can they best serve their customers? What would make a short trip to your community pharmacy more beneficial than click and deliver? All this talk of digital innovation sounds impressive until those same digital champion are face with it’s consequences.
Who is the guild protecting? All pharmacies or just the couple that already have large online stores? I tend to agree with 8:31 am. That said I am no expert on this matter. Anyone understands what is at stake here, anyone more knowledgeable able to enlighten me?
The Guild is protecting the financial interests of the shop-owning pharmacists over that of the convenience of the public to have medicines supplied and delivered as and when and where they want. Simple as that. They have been doing it for 30+ years. Worse union than the building workers!
David.
Thank you David. Was hoping it was less shallow than that.
What the Guild is doing is akin to trying to prevent the sun from rising. Whether they like it or not, the interwebs is a thing, Amazon has the inside running in terms of online retail, and we would rather get our stuff online and delivered to our door. The Guild and pharmacists have had years to adapt. Instead, some of them have helped Amazon along by stuffing their stores with a gambit of wares and treating people like customers, not patients. They have made pharmacy a retail exercise, so now we see it as perfectly reasonable to buy medications online alongside dog food, car seat covers and trousers.
> treating people like customers, not patients. They have made pharmacy a retail exercise
this is not true of plenty of pharmacies. We (for instance) buy lots of things from Amazon, but we'll continue using our trusted personal/local pharmacy for medications even if it costs (a little) more
My first thought was not regarding market share of shareholder profits or even assume convenience. My first thought was - crickey will this give Amazon access to my health record to harvest information is a safe, secure, seamless and secretive way. People always use the “ well google amazon and Microsoft know more about you than (insert concern raised by privacy experts). Even stopped to wonder how and why they know so much?
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