UPDATE: August 24, 2022. Amazon has announced they will close its health service Amazon Care, reflecting a reversal in trajectory from the e-commerce giant’s recent ventures into the healthcare sector.

Amazon planned to buy One Medical for $3.9 billion to expand their growing healthcare empire. One Medical’s parent company, 1Life Healthcare, Inc., closed Thursday at $17.25, just below Amazon’s offered price of $18.

The massive retailer first entered into healthcare in 2019.

Here are six things to know about the deal and Amazon’s previous endeavors to invade the healthcare industry:

🔹One Medical is an app and website members use to book appointments, track health records and renew prescriptions.

🔹One Medical has yet to turn a profit since going public in 2020. In the first three months of 2022, losses reached $90 million.

🔹The acquisition of One Medical will pit Amazon against other companies such as UnitedHealth Group’s Optum, CVS Health and hospital systems that increasingly employ physicians.

🔹Amazon’s previous forays into healthcare include a $1 billion deal for a business to ship prescriptions nationwide and a venture to remake healthcare that companies offer to U.S. workers. They haven’t met with much success so far.

🔹In 2019, Amazon launched Amazon Care, a telehealth service it first offered to its employees. Last year, they indicated this would expand in offerings to other companies.

🔹Amazon also launched its own pharmacy business after buying online pharmacy PillPack two years ago, but the service has failed to gain meaningful traction so far, critics and rivals say.

Neil Lindsay, Senior Vice President of Amazon Health Services, said: “We think health care is high on the list of experiences that need reinvention. 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.”

“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,” he continued. “Together with One Medical’s human-centered 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. We look forward to delivering on that long-term mission.”

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