How does Medline make money?

I work in a hospital and Medline is EVERYWHERE. They supply all our basic needs from hospital gowns, gloves, gauze, toiletries, and suture kits. I’m not in surgery so I don’t know how far their reach extends but I am very curious about this company. They just went public on December 17, 2025.

Medline states they are “the largest provider of medical-surgical (“med-surg”) products and supply chain solutions serving all points of care, based on total net sales of med-surg products.”

I believe that, like I said- they are everywhere. And I have spoken with friends in other hospitals who also use Medline as their vendor of all things and most of us work for corporate hospitals that own many different hospitals across various regions.

I’m just going to keep copying from their annual report because I want to be able to refer back to these snippets as I continue.

As of December 31, 2025, we offer our customers approximately 190,000 med-surg products through our Medline Brand segment and hold leading

positions across many key product families for our Medline Brand products. Our Medline Brand products are organized into three product categories: Front Line Care, Surgical Solutions, and Laboratory and Diagnostics.

• Front Line Care offers mission-critical med-surg products for patient-facing needs, including wound care products, exam gloves, skin care and

incontinence products, environment cleaning supplies, textiles, hand sanitizer, durable medical equipment, patient plastics, and decolonization and

infection control products.

• Surgical Solutions offers operating room and perioperative environment product solutions, including surgical procedure trays, drapes and gowns, personal protective equipment, sterile wraps, surgical instruments, surgeon’s gloves, procedure kits, and orthopedic implants.

• Laboratory and Diagnostics offers a full range of laboratory and diagnostic product solutions, including point of care testing, analyzers and

instrumentation, lab and diagnostic consumables, diagnostic instruments, vital signs monitors, and anatomic pathology and phlebotomy products.

^^This is the part I really was aware of, but apparently they offer more

Apparently they also offer “supply chain solutions”

As of December 31, 2025, we offer approximately 145,000 med-surg products from over 1,300 third-party suppliers, including nearly all leading national brands, through our Supply Chain Solutions segment. We also provide our customers with supply chain optimization services such as consulting engagements, outsourced warehouse and technology management, put-away-ready packaging, third-party logistics, inventory rationalization, and route

planning. Our third-party suppliers are primarily responsible for costs related to import and inbound freight, whereas we are primarily responsible for costs related to outbound freight from our distribution centers. Our supply chain expertise allows us to provide additional service offerings to optimize our customers’ supply chain and inventory workflows, helping these customers cost-effectively manage their supply chain while building strong relationships

and enhancing retention.

I’ll be curious to see more of what these products would be and will check in our supply room for outsourced supplies because I do think we have a few.

Ok so How do to they make money? Contracts!

A Prime Vendor relationship is a relationship for which there is a multi-year distribution agreement between Medline and a customer, whereby the customer agrees to use Medline for the vast majority of its med-surg product needs.

In our Prime Vendor relationships, we enter into long-term agreements, typically structured with five-year terms, to act as the primary consolidated logistics partner for these customers’ med-surg product needs. These agreements have been and are expected to continue to be a key contributor to our growth. Our customers realize efficiencies by partnering with one supply chain partner to consolidate their med-surg purchase volume. Prior to the market adoption of the Prime Vendor model, customers sourced such products individually from a highly fragmented base of suppliers. The Prime Vendor model instead centralizes procurement and distribution, which in turn drives efficiency and higher service levels.

Other things about the company:

• They have 70 distribution centers of which 45 are in the US. They use AI and robotics in the warehouse spaces for efficiency.

• They have 2,100 MedTrans trucks used for delivery.

• They have a commercial team of 4,000 people.

• They also note they have a track record of successfully bringing new products to market, with more than 2,300 granted patents and more than 450 U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) 510(k) clearances. Over the last three years, they have successfully launched more than 250 new products.

• They manufacture 1/3 of the products within 30 manufacturing facilities, 24 of which are in North America

• The other 2/3 they work with 600 global partners across 40 countries, most who have decades long exclusive relationships with them

• They have over 45k employees worldwide, 26k in the US.

  • I’ve done some quick browsing on indeed and Glassdoor and from those sites people typically seem to not stay for long because they are big pushers no matter what you’re doing- very corporate

• They have more than 2,300 granted patents as well as trademark registrations protecting our notable brands, including Medline, Curad, Microtek, Hudson, and Proxima.

So long story short, they sell a lot of products to a lot of different medical facilities but they also own distribution and manufacturing centers to lower costs although they still outsource 2/3 of their supply manufacturing. We will see if this company is worth an investment as I continue. This will be my first company all the way through so lets see how this goes!