Former Clinton, Obama administration officials join PillPack

Summers, Messina take roles with growing e-pharmacy

Larry Summers, secretary of the treasury in the Clinton administration and a former president of Harvard University, has been named a strategic adviser by PillPack, the fast-growing e-commerce pharmacy co-headquartered in Manchester.

In addition, the company has named Jim Messina, CEO of The Messina Group, former deputy chief of staff in the Obama administration and former President Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, to its board of directors.

Summers, who remains a professor at Harvard, will be a member of the company’s strategic advisory group. He was described by Yvonne Hao, chief financial and operating officer at PillPack, as “one of the world’s most thoughtful academics on public health, health incentives and economic models of care delivery.”

Summers praised PillPack for its “compelling vision, rooted in a belief that financial incentives should be oriented around the best outcome for the customer. I look forward to working with the team as they catalyze changes in this industry over the coming months and years.”

Messina, who’s also chair of Organizing for Action – the successor organization to President Obama’s Organizing for America initiative – said that “defending access to healthcare has been a defining part of my career to date. Working with PillPack, I've seen that pharmacy is an underpowered lever to help lower costs and improve health outcomes. PillPack has a clear vision to change this model.”

“Jim has been an ally from the beginning,” said TJ Parker, PillPack’s co-founder and CEO. “He helped PillPack become, today, the only independent pharmacy with nationwide home delivery. Adding Jim to the board gives us a strategic advantage in a rapidly shifting industry.”