Amazon has launched a central arm to consolidate its various healthcare business efforts, an Amazon spokesperson confirmed to Modern Healthcare.
The combined healthcare organization is led by Neil Lindsay, a former senior vice president in Amazon's Prime business.
Lindsay took the helm as senior vice president for Amazon's healthcare organization last month, where he now leads Amazon's Pharmacy, Care and Diagnostics businesses, according to an Amazon spokesperson. Lindsay, who's spent the past 11 years at Amazon leading various marketing divisions, continues to lead Amazon's global brand and fixed marketing efforts.
Lindsay's new healthcare role was first reported by CNBC.
Bringing together Amazon's healthcare efforts into one consolidated structure will support the company as it works to develop new "customer-centric" ways for patients to access healthcare services, products and medications, the Amazon spokesperson said.
Amazon's latest healthcare move differs from Google, another tech giant that's been making inroads in healthcare. Google in August reorganized by unwinding its Google Health division, which launched in 2018, instead opting to distribute health projects and teams across other areas of the company, including research, search and device divisions.
Amazon has continued to push into healthcare, even after Amazon, JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway disbanded their healthcare joint venture at the start of the year.
Amazon this year signed its first few customers for Amazon Care, a medical care service it's selling to employer health plans, and continued work on Amazon Pharmacy, a delivery service it launched late last year. The company in recent years has also been striking deals to bring its Alexa voice assistant and cloud services into healthcare organizations.
Amazon posted $110.8 billion in net sales for 2021's third quarter, up 15.3% year-over-year, and $4.9 billion in operating income, down from $6.2 billion in last year's third quarter, according to earnings results released in October. Amazon doesn't break out its healthcare products and services in its quarterly earnings results.
