Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce company, is going to launch in December 2014 an application to facilitate home delivery of pharmaceutical products and medicines. Users simply have to upload a photo of their medical prescription, which will then be sent to several nearby pharmacies. The user selects the best prices and chooses the preferred pharmacy. He pays online and will be delivered at home.
But this kind of competition could be risky as fake medicines and fake e-pharmacies could be expanded on line.
Alibaba plans to mitigate this risk through CITIC 21CN, an integrated information and content service provider, allowing a wide range of data for pharmaceutical products. This service has also developed a barcode system that verifies the authenticity of pharmaceuticals.
A mobile app to facilitate mobile medical appointment scheduling and payment has already been set up by their rival Tencent’s WeChat.
Source: Trading floor and TechNode