Amazon has announced plans to buy HealthTech company One Medical for $3.9 billion.

One Medical is a technology-driven primary care organisation which offers a combination of in-person, digital, and virtual care services.

The technology giant already has its own virtual health services, launched in 2019, which are now available across the whole of the US.

Amazon Care, the company’s healthcare arm, has seen growth across the states over the past couple of years, largely driven by the advent of coronavirus.

The company's healthcare app, which was first trialled in a pilot by its employees in Seattle, also enables healthcare professionals to prescribe medications which can be delivered via a ‘Care courier’ to their homes or collected from pharmacies.

“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,” said Neil Lindsay, senior vice president of Amazon Health Services, commenting on the buyout. “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.”

The technology giant is also in the early phases of developing cancer vaccines in a collaboration with the Seattle-based Fred Hutchinson Cancer Centre.

“The opportunity to transform health care and improve outcomes by combining One Medical’s human-centred and technology-powered model and exceptional team with Amazon’s customer obsession, history of invention, and willingness to invest in the long-term is so exciting,” said Amir Dan Rubin, One Medical chief executive. “There is an immense opportunity to make the health care experience more accessible, affordable, and even enjoyable for patients, providers, and payers. We look forward to innovating and expanding access to quality healthcare services, together.”

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