Haven – the joint venture of healthcare by Amazon, Berkshire and JPMorgan – is shut down

“Haven will end its operations by the end of February,” Haven spokeswoman Brooke Thurston said in an email to CNN Business. The news was first reported by CNBC.

The company was founded in 2018 with the goal of providing better health care services and insurance at a lower cost to workers and families at these three leading U.S. businesses – and possibly other U.S. businesses as well.

But since its inception, Haven has struggled to get rid of its three partners. Haven CEO Atul Gawande retired in May and chief operating officer Jack Stoddard also left the firm in 2019 after just a few months in office.
Spokespersons for JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Amazon (AMZN) also confirmed to CNN Business that Haven has closed. Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) was not immediately available for comment.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, wrote in an email to employees shared with CNN Business: “Haven has worked best as an incubator of ideas, a place to launch, test and test “learning – and a way to share best practices in our businesses. We have learned to be invaluable.”

Thurston told CNN Business that “Forward, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase & Co … will continue to work together informally to design programs tailored to the specific needs of our individual employee populations and locations. completed.”

She added that “the Haven team has made good progress in exploring a wide range of healthcare solutions, as well as testing new ways to facilitate access to primary care, understand insurance benefits more easily and use them more easily, and prescription medicine cheaper. ”

Amazon is now a drug store.  It will send prescriptions to Prime members

The three companies are expected to continue to focus on promoting healthcare for their own employees, especially as the Covid-19 vaccine becomes available to a larger group of Americans.

In his email to employees, Dimon said “we are going to take insights we have gained through our joint venture and build on them.” He added that there would be no changes to the benefit programs for the bank’s workers, and that Haven would work with Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway to find new jobs for Haven employees.

Meanwhile, Amazon is stepping up its own efforts in the healthcare industry. The company already owns the online pharmacy PillPack and recently launched plans to send prescriptions to Prime members.
Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett, Betting on Drug Stocks

Berkshire Hathaway, run by billionaire Warren Buffett, recently looked for bargains in the healthcare sector.

Berkshire announced in November that it had bought shares of vaccine developer Covid-19 and Big Pharma leader Pfizer (PFE) in the third quarter. Buffett’s firm also invested in AbbVie (ABBV), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) and Merck (MRK).

.Source