Ali Health sees net loss for six months to September jump 272 per cent to HK$125.56 million

Alibaba Health Information Technology (Ali Health), which recorded a wider interim net loss for the six months to the end of September, plans to expand its fledgling internet-based medical services network to meet growing demand for private health care operations in mainland China.

Chief executive Wang Lei said pilot testing of the company’s medical services network had started in the interim period, following government health care reform initiatives that encouraged private investment.

“The group will continue to build an internet-based tiered medical services network, with family doctors as the main entry point and supported by telemedicine services,” Wang said in a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange late on Monday.

A Deloitte report said public hospitals remain the “dominant care purveyor” on the mainland, where health care spending is forecast to reach US$892 billion in 2018 from US$511.3 billion in 2013.

It said the mainland had a large health care demand gap due to an ageing population, growing urbanisation, proliferating lifestyle diseases, rapidly increasing consumer wealth and advances in universal health care insurance coverage.

Ali Health says its medical services network uses internet technologies and so-called big data analytical capabilities to boost efficiency and improve care while connecting doctors, pharmaceutical companies and third-party service providers with patients.