With two-thirds of US adults relying on prescription drugs, improving medication access and delivery is a crucial priority for healthcare stakeholders.
AI and automation offer promising avenues to optimize each step from packaging to distribution to post-delivery medication adherence. Along the way, these technologies offer benefits to the pharmacy industry, like reducing operational costs and streamlining workflow efficiency.
These shifts come at a turning point for the space, as leaders like Rite Aid, CVS, and Walgreens have made recent announcements to close more than 1,500 stores. This contributes to the rise of pharmacy deserts — any area located 10+ miles away from a pharmacy. More than 40% of US counties are now considered pharmacy deserts.
In response, both retail and central fill pharmacies are turning to tech to mitigate the impact of these closures and ensure drug access for patients. For retail pharmacies, this means adopting chatbots for customer service and workflow automation tools, giving pharmacists more time to spend with patients. Meanwhile, central fill pharmacies are leaning on automation to sort, package, and dispense medications in bulk, in turn lowering prescription costs.
In the market map below, we identify 93 vendors across 9 categories in digital pharmacy tech.
Note: Our map includes active startups, public companies, and acquired units of companies that offer digital pharmacy tech solutions. This market map is not exhaustive of the space.
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