AliHealth, Sinopharm Launch Mobile Location-based Drug Search Function
iFeng, 1/14/16
Chinese e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba Group's (NYSE: BABA) healthcare subsidiary, Alibaba Health Information Technology (0241.HK) ("AliHealth"), recently partnered with Sinopharm Jiankang Zaixian, a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned pharmaceuticals conglomerate China National Pharmaceutical Group Corporation's Sinopharm Group (1099.HK), to launch a location-based "AliHealth Pharmaceuticals Search" platform for the AliHealth app. The platform is available to use free of charge and enables health patients and their families to find scarce pharmaceuticals that they require. Users can limit their search to a particular region to identify local hospitals carrying the drugs they need and to view information regarding the hospital's supply levels. When users search for a particular drug through the AliHealth app's main search interface, if the system cannot find the drug, it will recommend that the user try the AliHealth Pharmaceuticals Search platform and will provide a link that users can click to run the query.
Liu Zhiqiang, a representative for Sinopharm's drug search platform, said that Sinopharm currently supplies approximately 75% of hospitals in China, including 94% of China's primary hospitals. It also provides pharmaceutical products to more than 150,000 pharmaceuticals distributors and retail pharmacies and has information regarding the large majority of the market's pharmaceutical product supply flows. AliHealth senior product director Zhang Liang said that by working with Sinopharm to create the drug search platform, the parties have created a system that can locate most pharmaceutical products on the market. Zhang reminded users that the current version of the platform requires the user to enter the full name of the drug product, but said that later versions will support fuzzy matching for drug names. If a user is unable to find the product they are looking for in the system, they can call a customer service hotline to speak with a service representative. Zhang said that for this cooperation between AliHealth and Sinopharm, Sinopharm mainly provides drug product data, and AliHealth provides technical platform support.
Liu Zhiqiang said that in the future Sinopharm may expand the scope of its cooperation with AliHealth, so that after users locate the pharmaceutical products they are looking for they can reserve them online and receive online consultation regarding their use.
In addition to the new pharmaceuticals search function, users can also use the AliHealth app to purchase drugs online, make appointments with health experts, and receive online consultation regarding drug use. The AliHealth app can also automatically match users with a nearby pharmacy based on their location.
Keywords: mobile search mobile healthcare m-commerce wireless Alibaba Group Sinopharm Zhang Liang Alibaba Health 0241.HK BABA Liu Zhiqiang
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