Amazon to buy primary care provider One Medical for $3.9B

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon will acquire the primary care organization One Medical in a deal valued roughly at $3.9 billion, marking another expansion for the retailer into health care services.

The Seattle-based e-commerce giant said Thursday it is buying One Medical for $18 per share cash. Its one of Amazon’s biggest acquisitions, following its $13.7 billion deal to buy Whole Foods in 2017 and its $8.5 billion purchase of Hollywood studio MGM, which closed earlier this year.

One Medical, whose parent company is the San-Francisco based 1Life Healthcare, Inc., is a membership-based service that offers virtual care as well as in-person visits. It also works with more than 8,000 companies to provide its health benefits to employees.

As of March, One Medical had about 767,000 members and 188 medical offices in 25 markets, according to its first-quarter earnings report, which also showed the company had incurred a net loss of $90.9 million after pulling in $254.1 million in revenue. The total deal value announced Thursday includes One Medical’s debt.

Neil Lindsay, the senior vice president of Amazon Health Services, said in a statement the acquisition is geared toward reinventing the health care “experience” for things like booking an appointment and taking trips to the pharmacy.

“We love inventing to make what should be easy easier and we want to be one of the companies that helps dramatically improve the healthcare experience over the next several years,” Lindsay said. Overall, consumer demand for telemedicine and virtual health care care visits exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic. Health care bill payers like employers and insurers are also becoming more focused on improving access to patient care and making sure their patients stay tuned in to their health, see their doctors regularly and take their prescriptions.