Amazon and One Medical have announced that they will enter into a merger agreement. Primary care organisation One Medical will be acquired by Amazon, in a venture that will combine the technological expertise of One Medical with Amazon’s customer-obsession to make in-person and digital healthcare both affordable and accessible.

Challenging the norms of digital healthcare

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, One Medical, believes in delivering top-quality and accessible healthcare and wants to build a system where quality care is affordable for everyone.

For US$18 per share, Amazon will acquire One Medical for US$3.9bn, which will also cover One Medical’s net debt. Amir Dan Rubin will remain as CEO of One Medical.

Amazon and One Medical to dramatically improve the healthcare experience

Neil Lindsay, SVP of Amazon Health Services, believes that the healthcare sector needs some reinvention. Amazon has changed how we shop and watch our favourite television programmes - how we see a doctor is next.

“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,” said Neil Lindsay, SVP of Amazon Health Services. “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.” 

For One Medical, the opportunity to transform health care and advance outcomes by combining One Medical’s technology-powered model with Amazon’s history of invention is exciting.

“There is an immense opportunity to make the health care experience more accessible, affordable, and even enjoyable for patients, providers, and payers,” said Amir Dan Rubin, One Medical CEO, who will retain his position. “We look forward to innovating and expanding access to quality healthcare services, together.”

“Together with One Medical’s human-centred and technology-powered approach to health care, we believe we can and will help more people get better care, when and how they need it,” agreed Lindsay. “We look forward to delivering on that long-term mission.”