Amazon is making its largest push into the healthcare industry after announcing a bid to buy California healthcare firm One Medical for $3.9billion.
The global shopping giant has not revealed plans for the firm and it is not clear if it plans to maintain it as a separate company or integrate it into a larger healthcare platform.
‘We think health care is high on the list of experiences that need reinvention,’ stated SVP of Amazon Health Services Neil Lindsay.
‘Booking an appointment, waiting weeks or even months to be seen, taking time off work, driving to a clinic, finding a parking spot, waiting in the waiting room then the exam room for what is too often a rushed few minutes with a doctor, then making another trip to a pharmacy – we see lots of opportunity to both improve the quality of the experience and give people back valuable time in their days.’
One Medical is not Amazon’s first foray into healthcare, but it is by far its largest investment in the industry. The company previously purchased online mail-order pharmacy PillPack for just under $1billion in 2018.
In 2019, the company also piloted a program called Amazon Care which offers live virtual sessions with doctors and other healthcare professionals through an app.
Amazon Care has not attracted any big name clients outside of other companies owned by Amazon. One Medical offers similar services to employers, but is far larger with nearly 8,500 clients.
One Medical was founded as a San Francisco-based chain of primary care clinics in 2007. It considers its mission to be to ‘transform health care for all through our human-centered, technology-powered model’, according to its IPO.
The company previously made headlines for attracting big name investors in 2018. It received $350million in funding from the Carlyle Group, a major multinational private equity firm, as well as backing from Google’s parent company Alphabet.
One Medical went public in January 2020, offering 17.5million shares at $14 per share.
Since going public, it has faced criticism from customers.
In early 2021, it reportedly let ineligible clients skip the line for coronavirus vaccines, which sparked a congressional investigation.
One Medical also charged some customers for coronavirus vaccines, according to a report form The Verge. The company blamed this on a ‘billing system error’.
Also in 2021, a data leak reported by TechCrunch exposed hundreds of customers’ email addresses.
Amazon has made headlines in recent years with other large acquisitions. In 2017, it bought supermarket chain Whole Foods for $13.7billion and in March 2022 it closed a deal to purchase movie studio MGM for $8.45billion.
If this bid goes through, One Medical will be the online retailer’s third largest acquisition to date.
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