In 2014, billionaire Jack Ma, founder of online retail giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., declared his ambition to make China's hospitals better, drugs cheaper and people healthier.
Others in China's tech universe were becoming equally bullish on health care, and that year alone, investment in the internet health sector surged about sevenfold to $1.4 billion. Since then, billionaire Robin Li's search engine Baidu Inc. has built a mobile application for physicians to give online consults, while Tencent Holdings Ltd. has invested in various startups. Ma pushed his plans forward via Alibaba Health Information Technology Ltd., attempting to bring hospital services online and build an internet pharmacy hub.
