Welcome to the A16Z podcast. Today we're having another of our hallway style conversations.

These episodes are based on videos that are also available on our YouTube channel,

YouTube.com slash C slash A16Z videos. Given all the headlines lately around consolidation

in the industry, Walmart and Humana, Etna and CBS, Amazon JPMorgan and Berkshire Hathaway, our biofund team, including

Jorge Condi and Vijay Pondi, and Jeffrey Lowe, discusses what these moves signal, as well as their

implications for customers, costs, and any new opportunities that may arise.

So, hi, you have the A16Z Bio team here, and I think we wanted to spend a few minutes talking about a lot of

the headlines that are hitting in healthcare in the very recent weeks. So going back to late

last week, there was news that Walmart's in the early stages of potentially acquiring Humana.

So this is large retail chain buying a large insurer.

And to me, what's remarkable about that, a couple of things, really.

One, the first one is that Walmart in its own right is a major pharmaceutical,

sorry, pharmacy chain.

Yes.

So that's incredible in and of itself.

And the second is that you're going to see this sort of vertical integration or increased

vertical integration between, you know, the entire value chain.

So just to like tick through it in a very simplistic form, right, you have, you know,

your, your pharmaceutical companies that make drugs.

You have your drug wholesalers that go out and buy bulk drugs, usually generics.

You have your pharmacies that essentially act as the channel to access medicines.

You have your specialty pharmacies that are responsible for ensuring that really high-cost,

...