Tencent invests US$70 million in academic medical portal DXY

DXY, which claims to be the largest online academic portal for Chinese physicians and life science professionals with more than four million registered members, announced Tencent has invested US$70 million for a minority equity stake in the company.

"Given the prevalence of fake and inaccurate medical and health care information in China, which negatively impacts consumers, DXY is especially focused on ensuring the 'reliability' of the information it provides through its platform," the company said in a statement.

Martin Lau, president of Tencent, said the company has been closely following the mainland health care industry. "With a rich pool of over two million professional doctors, we understand that DXY is an industry leader in the health care industry," he said.

"Tencent is capable of connecting DXY's talented pool of health care professionals and their medical knowledge database with tens of millions of users. This improves the ease of which our users can access healthcare information and professional medical help."

DXY will co-operate with Tencent, including integrating with the internet giant's popular instant messaging platform WeChat and its microblogging site Mobile QQ.

DXY will use the investment to develop health care products for doctors, pharmaceutical enterprises and consumers, the firm said. It said the plan was to provide medical information to consumers on three categories: products for WeChat, mobile apps and web-based services.