The news: Walmart partnered with health benefits company Transcarent to let Transcarent members access Walmart’s prescription benefits, retail clinics, telehealth services, OTC medications, and vaccines, among other health benefits. For context, Transcarent offers personalized, digital health benefits for self-insured employers.

Amazon is maneuvering to become a dominant player in direct-to-consumer healthcare services, beginning with its online pharmacy and telehealth services for its employees. It may acquire more healthcare delivery outlets, such as primary care and urgent care clinics. Entrenched industry players are watching carefully.

National chain pharmacies are the most common place to fill prescriptions in the US, with 43% of the country’s adults purchasing prescription drugs there as of July 2021.

Digital pharmacies like Capsule and Medly are only making meds more accessible in larger cities—but in order to keep up with Amazon, they’ll have to expand their footprints.

Happify Health launched the first-ever prescription digital therapy for anxiety and depression, giving it a competitive edge over its peers—but if DTx companies want doctors to prescribe their apps, they’ll need insurers on their side.

Digital therapeutics (DTx) were gaining popularity as tools to help slash the US’ $3 trillion annual spending on chronic disease, and the pandemic has vaulted digital therapies into the spotlight. Now, the Teladoc-Livongo megamerger is heating up competition in the DTx space as players race to capture a slice of a market slated to reach $56 billion by 2025.