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

Amazon announced Thursday it 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

Amazon Acquisition (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Amazon announced Thursday it 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 in a statement it will acquire One Medical for $18 per share in an all-cash transaction. It marks 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 patients in-person and virtual doctor visits. As of this March, it had about 767,00 members and 188 medical offices in 25 markets, according to its first-quarter earnings report, which also showed the company had incurred a net losses of $90.9 million after pulling in $254.1 million in revenue.

Neil Lindsay, the senior vice president of Amazon Health Services, said in a statement the acquisition is geared towards reinventing the healthcare “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.

Amazon's latest acquisition furthers the company's foray into provide health care services. In 2020, the retail colossus opened an online drug store that allows customers to order medication or prescription refills, and have them delivered to their front door in a couple of days. Last year, it began offering its Amazon Care telemedicine program to employers nationwide.

In morning trading, shares of 1Life Healthcare surged 68% to $17.13.