Amazon’s local arm has filed a trademark with IP Australia for ‘Amazon Pharmacy’, signalling a potential push into pharmaceutical retail in Australia.

The global marketplace first pushed into the pharmaceutical space in 2018 with the acquisition of PillPack, a pharmacy designed for people who make multiple daily prescriptions by delivering pre-sorted dose packaging.

The trademark, first spotted by SMH, was first lodged on January 9, and covers medical and veterinary services.

Seeing a large-scale, external entrant push into the pharmacy space is nothing new, according to itchy baby co-founder Julia Simmonds, who noted the supermarket industry has long pushed for deregulation in order to bolster their own in-store offerings.

Simmonds said while the Pharmacy Guild has kept this threat at bay, the customer convenience of a company like Amazon entering the market could impact pharmacies more than supermarkets.

“[Pharmacies] have missed one vital piece of changing information. The way people choose to access and receive health information, and how they want to engage with healthcare services, has changed,” Simmonds wrote in 2018.

“In a time where the word ‘busy’ is the only answer to the question ‘how are you?’, this is sadly remiss of us.”

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