CVS beats out Amazon in $8 billion Signify Health acquisition

CVS scored big with its $8 billion acquisition of Signify Health, a tech platform that coordinates in-home healthcare services, beating out challengers like Amazon in a bidding war. The deal moves the drugstore giant away from your neighborhood pharmacy and into your home.

“This acquisition will enhance our connection to consumers in the home and enables providers to better address patient needs as we execute our vision to redefine the health care experience,” CVS Health CEO Karyn Lynch said.

CVS isn’t the only one trying to “redefine” healthcare. Monday’s win makes it and tech giant Amazon 1-1 on recent healthcare deals. Amazon recently scored primary care company One Medical over CVS in a $3.9 billion deal in July, a signal the e-commerce company is serious about expanding into the $4 trillion healthcare space.

“We think health care is high on the list of experiences that need reinvention,” Senior Vice President of Amazon Health Services Neil Lindsay said when announcing the One Medical deal. “We want to be one of the companies that helps dramatically improve the healthcare experience over the next several years.”

But that win for Amazon could be in jeopardy, which is just the latest blow to Amazon’s healthcare ambitions. Along with losing the bidding war for Signify Health, on Friday a securities filing revealed that the Federal Trade Commission is investigating Amazon’s purchase of One Medical.

FTC Chair Lina Khan is no fan of Amazon or its expansion outside of e-commerce. She propelled to antitrust fame as a law student with her Yale Law Journal paper, Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox.

The investigation could delay closing the One Medical deal for another year. The announcement of the investigation came roughly one week after Amazon announced the shuttering of its telehealth service, Amazon Care.