This Startup

Revolutionize
d an Industry
Through
Design
Launching a nationwide venture that redefines and
simplifies how customers engage with their pharmacy
THE CHALLENGE

Help PillPack, an IDEO startup-in-residence, build a venturing strategy

for its prescription home-delivery system.

IMPACT

PillPack now delivers hundreds of thousands of prescriptions every

month. Amazon bought PillPack in June 2018 for $1 billion.
THE OUTCOME

A refined brand vision, strategy, and identity across channels, as well as a

redesigned website, a private dashboard for PillPack customers, and a
suite of physical products.

Dealing with medication can often be a bigger pain than the ailment itself.
Standing in long lines at the pharmacy, keeping up with expiration dates,
making sure you take this medicine with food and that one on an empty
stomach—it can be overwhelming. 

An online pharmacy called PillPack had a mission to make it easier. PillPack

worked to build a prescription home-delivery system that takes the pain out
of the whole process. The venture brought their business to IDEO’s
Cambridge office as a startup-in-residence, and worked with designers to
fine-tune their offer and showcase it to the world.

Here’s how it works: Your doctor sends your prescriptions straight to the
pharmacists at PillPack, who organize the medications—including refills,
over-the-counter drugs, vitamins, and supplements—into presorted,
personalized packets. These tidy little packets are labeled by date and time
and delivered to your doorstep. Every 14-day supply of medication fits
neatly into an IDEO-designed durable dispenser that is meant to become
part of customers’ routines and fit seamlessly into their homes. IDEO also
designed a travel pouch that makes taking medicine on-the-go simple and
discreet. For those who need a human to talk to, pharmacists at PillPack's
pharmacies are available anytime via phone or email to answer questions.
PillPack delivers everything you need from the pharmacy to your door.

PillPack was the second startup-in-residence to work with IDEO

Cambridge. Company founders Elliot Cohen and TJ Parker joined forces
with the design team to redefine how consumers engage with their
pharmacy. During the three-month residency, the teams focused on making
sure that every customer interaction with PillPack—from signing up for the
service online to using its product daily—was straightforward and
reassuring. 

Designers worked to refine the company’s brand vision, strategy, and

identity across channels, and used this framework to completely redesign
PillPack’s website, as well as a private dashboard for customers and a suite
of physical products.

The result was a set of tools that reflected a true understanding of PillPack’s
customers, a well-articulated product and service, and a human-centered
approach. PillPack is still the only independent pharmacy in the U.S. that
serves customers nationwide.

“PillPack has revealed the massive potential of combining design thinking

and the drug market... This simple innovation makes life easier for seniors
who can be a bit forgetful and have difficulty with bottles,” Wired wrote in an
article about the company. “Younger patients with active lifestyles and chronic
diseases can just pull as many packets as they need and go. All told, PillPack
means you’ll never have to help your grandma sort pills into a tacky day-of-
the-week organizer again.”
In June 2018, Amazon outbid other retailers to acquire PillPack for $1 billion.

https://youtu.be/IE5ZxZINyZQ