Table of Contents
SEATTLE — Amazon last month announced a deal to acquire One Medical, a publicly traded primary care company.
San Francisco-based One Medical operates on a membership model. Its services are an employee benefit at 8,500 companies. Individuals can purchase a yearly membership for $199, allowing them to access One Medical’s virtual care and same-day appointments at 188 medical offices.
The $3.9 billion deal could help Amazon expand its primary care capabilities, now centered on its Amazon Care initiative, which has announced plans to extend its virtual care services to another 20 cities this year. Amazon also has Amazon Pharmacy, launched following its acquisition of prescription-by-mail company PillPack.
Bloomberg News reported last month that One Medical was weighing a takeover offer from CVS Health and possibly other suitors. Amazon’s all-cash offer represented a 77% premium over One Medical’s closing price on the day the deal was announced.
Amir Dan Rubin, One Medical’s chief executive officer, will remain in the role upon completion of the deal, which requires approval from government regulators and One Medical shareholders.
“The opportunity to transform health care and improve outcomes by combining One Medical’s human-centered and technology-powered model and exceptional team with Amazon’s customer obsession, history of invention and willingness to invest in the long term is so exciting,” Rubin said. “There is an immense opportunity to make the health care experience more accessible, affordable and even enjoyable for patients, provider and payers. We look forward to innovating and expanding access to quality health care services, together.”
Disrupting the nation’s health care system was the goal of Haven, a joint-venture between Amazon, JP Morgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway that was disbanded in 2021 after three years of exploring the complicated and entrenched networks of physicians, insurers and drug makers to identify novel ways to slow the rise in health care costs and elevate the quality of service.
Amazon still views health care as “high on the list of experiences that need reinvention,” Neil Lindsay, senior vice president of Amazon Health Services, said in the news release announcing the deal.
Lindsay cited long wait times for appointments, cumbersome logistics and rushed visits with doctors, among other challenges commonly encountered by patients. With the One Medical deal, he said, Amazon wants to be “one of the companies that helps dramatically improve the health care experience over the next several years.”
