Medline Hits Nasdaq after Snagging 2025’s Biggest IPO

CNBC, Bloomberg, and Reuters contributed to this report.

Medline — the massive medical supplies company that quietly sits behind a whole lot of what hospitals use every day — is making a very loud entrance into public markets.

The private equity-backed giant is set to start trading on the Nasdaq on Wednesday under the ticker MDLN, after pricing what’s now the biggest IPO of 2025.

Medline priced its offering at $29 a share on Tuesday, raising $6.26 billion in an upsized deal. The pricing puts the company’s market value at at least $37 billion, based on shares listed in its filings — and it caps off a year that’s been steadier for IPOs than many expected.

CEO Jim Boyle summed up the company’s low-profile, high-reach vibe earlier Wednesday, saying Medline has historically done little marketing — but going public gives it a bigger megaphone.

“We are the largest company you’ve never heard of,” he said — and, he added, “we happen to be everywhere.”

Medline’s listing is a confidence boost heading into 2026. Just over 200 IPOs have priced in the US this year, and Medline is the largest US listing since Rivian’s $13.7 billion IPO in November 2021, according to CNBC’s compiled data.

It’s also a major moment for private equity. Blackstone, Carlyle and Hellman & Friedman bought a majority stake in Medline in 2021 for about $34 billion — a deal that was, at the time, the biggest leveraged buyout since the financial crisis. Now, they’re helping bring it to the public markets in a headline-grabbing way.

Founded in 1966 and based in Northfield, Illinois, Medline manufactures and distributes roughly 335,000 medical and surgical products — everything from gloves, gowns and masks to scalpels and wheelchairs. The company sells in more than 100 countries and had over 43,000 employees worldwide as of the end of 2024.

Financially, Medline posted $25.5 billion in net sales in 2024. It also carried about $16.8 billion in total debt as of late September 2025.

Medline’s path to an IPO reportedly slowed earlier this year because of uncertainty around tariffs — a real issue given that a large share of its products are sourced or manufactured in Asia, particularly China.

The company expects tariffs to take a $150 million to $200 million bite out of income before taxes in fiscal 2026.

Medline competes in a crowded space with giants like McKesson and Cardinal Health, but its scale and steady demand-driven business make it a different kind of IPO story: less hype, more hospital supply chain muscle.

And now, it’s public — with Wall Street watching closely to see if this deal opens the door for an even busier IPO slate in 2026.