The new company would be combined with IBM’s health analytics unit
IBM Corp has announced that it is buying medical image company Merge Healthcare in a $1 billion deal. The new company would be combined with IBM’s health analytics unit, powered by its Watson supercomputer.
Reportedly, there are plans to combine data and images from Merge Healthcare’s medical imaging management platform with Watson’s cloud-based healthcare computing system.
IBM has making rapid expansions in the healthcare IT sector. The Merge deal is the company’s third health-related acquisition since launching the Watson Health unit in April.
“Organically, we will continue to build and invest from a research perspective in core technologies,” said Stephen Gold, VP, IBM Watson.
IBM will reportedly gain access 7,500 US healthcare sites through this deal.