2021 Revenues ($USD) : $17,500,000,000
2021 R&D spend : not available
2021 Number of Employees : 28,000
Fiscal Year End : 12/31/2020
Key People : Charlie Mills, CEO; Andy Mills, president; Jim Abrams, chief operating officer.

About the company: Northfield, Illinois–based Medline Industries is the largest privately held manufacturer and distributor of healthcare supplies in the U.S., with sales of $17.5 billion in 2020. The company is led by the Mills family, which remained the largest single shareholder after selling a majority stake in 2021 to a partnership of funds managed by Blackstone, Carlyle and Hellman & Friedman. Medline does business in more than 100 countries, offering more than 550,000 medical products and clinical solutions ranging from surgical gloves to wheelchairs to face masks to thermometers. Its customers include the largest healthcare systems in the U.S. and independent facilities. Business boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic, as Medline expanded its manufacturing and distribution capabilities to ramp up production of face masks, hand sanitizer and other essential medical supplies. Since 2018, Medline has spent $1.5 billion on new distribution centers, manufacturing capabilities and information technology, an effort that Medline said created 8,500 jobs at eight new distribution centers and around 150 manufacturing expansion projects. The latest project is a $77.5 million distribution center in Bonner Springs, Kansas. The company has also grown through acquisitions, paying $167.5 million to buy the Namic fluid management business from AngioDynamics in 2019, spending $29 million in 2020 to buy the SensiCare and Aloe Vesta collection of skincare product lines from ConvaTec, and paying $286 million to buy the Hudson RCI respiratory business from Teleflex in 2021.  –JH