Amazon Says Buying One Medical for $3.9Bln to 'Innovate' Healthcare

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Amazon announced on Thursday that it was buying the San Francisco-based company One Medical for $3.9 billion in order to get into the healthcare business with the aim of making the sort of innovations it had achieved with online retail.

“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,” Amazon Health Services Senior Vice President Neil Lindsay said in a statement.

One Medical is a membership-based service that offers virtual care as well as in-person visits. One Medical also works with more than 8,000 companies to provide health benefits to their employees.

As of this March, One Medical had about 767,000 members and 188 medical offices in 25 markets. 

The company’s revenue amounted to $254.1 million in the first quarter of this year, suffering losses of $90.9 million. Amazon said the losses would be amortized into the acquisition.

The purchase will be one of Amazon's biggest in years, after its $13.7 billion buyout of Whole Foods in 2017 and $8.5 billion acquisition of Hollywood studio MGM earlier this year.

Lindsay said Amazon was excited about the innovations it could bring to the process of individuals seeing a doctor and getting required medications.

“We think health care is high on the list of experiences that need reinvention,” he said. “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.”

Amazon shares were up almost 1% at $123.59 by 1:45 p.m. ET (17:45 GMT) on the news of the acquisition of One Medical. The e-commerce giant said it will pay $18 for each share of One Medical.