Amazon buys swanky clinic chain One Medical for $4B in its quest to Prime-ify healthcare
Now available on Prime… colonoscopy appointments. Yesterday, Amazon announced it agreed to buy membership-based healthcare provider One Medical for nearly $4B. It’s the Zon’s third-largest deal ever, after Whole Foods ($14B) and MGM ($9B). One Med, whose stock rose 60%+ yesterday, is a key partner for Amazon as it expands into healthcare:
- Convenient: One Med offers patients 24/7 virtual and IRL care at its 200 swanky clinics through a sleek app. Think: tele-prescriptions and same-day app-scheduled visits.
- Subscription: Patients pay $200/year just for membership, on top of normal care costs, which can be paid through insurance or out of pocket.
- Techy: Amazon wants to leverage One Med’s tech and network of nearly 800K members to “reinvent” healthcare (imagine: Alexa-powered checkups and Prime pill pickup).
- The Zon’s given few details about how One Med fits into its plans, but said the current CEO will stay in place.
Dr. Alexa just finished med school… but Amazon’s been quietly pushing into healthcare for years. The ecomm giant bought the online pharmacy PillPack for $750M in 2018 and used it to launch its own online pharmacy in 2020 (Prime members get free shipping). In 2019, the Zon launched a telehealth service for employees called Amazon Care. Last year, Amazon Care opened its service to US employers.
Healthcare’s about to get Prime-ified… Amazon’s already disrupted shopping, groceries, and movie streaming. Now it plans to disrupt the convoluted healthcare biz, which it said needs “reinvention.” The Zon tried to launch a healthcare biz called Haven in 2018 with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan, but it flopped because of a lack of healthcare experience, limited reach, and competing interests. This time around, Amazon may be more likely to succeed thanks to One Med’s know-how, streamlined strategy, and roster of 8K+ business clients.