Alibaba Health Aims to Become the Trusted Expert in Personal and Family Healthcare, Says CEO Zhu Shunyan

“AliHealthAspiring to Become: Caring for the health of you and your family‘Industry Expert’’. We are committed to making sustained efforts over cycles of ten to twenty years, working hand in hand with all stakeholders to jointly advance and elevate this goal.”April16On [date], AliHealth Chairman and“CEO Zhu Shunyan said so.”

On that day, Zhu Shunyan made the above statement at the 5th Future Healthcare Top 100 Conference. He explained that this “expert” is like a “doctor friend by people’s side,” being “highly professional, enthusiastic, and trustworthy.” When people face health issues, they can think of and turn to him for help immediately; with his presence, people are spared from much confusion and panic.

At the conference, the Hubei-born head of AliHealth stated that he felt “very fortunate” to have taken the helm at AliHealth just a year ago, with “gratitude and reverence.” He attributed this to historical opportunities: technological advancements and the public’s pursuit of quality of life have accelerated the development of the healthcare industry, while improved epidemic prevention and control capabilities have further solidified the certainty of industry growth. Driven by these multiple factors, internet healthcare has entered its “golden age.”

Zhu Shunyan stated that the future trend of the health industry is shifting from treatment to a model integrating treatment, prevention, and wellness; from in-hospital services to a combination of in-hospital and out-of-hospital services; and from the traditional “pharmaceuticals and insurance” model to one driven by cutting-edge technology. He believes that the healthcare industry currently faces four major challenges: asymmetry of medical information, insufficient accessibility of medical services, the need for improved digitalization in the healthcare sector, and high costs of medical security. These are also the core issues that AliHealth aims to address.

Zhu Shunyan emphasized that user value is the primary consideration for AliHealth. While centering on user value, leveraging cutting-edge technologies is the inevitable path for AliHealth to secure its future.

“As an internet technology company, our aspiration is that Chinese people not only live longer but also live healthier lives with a high quality of life,” said Zhu Shunyan. He stated that in ten years, AliHealth aims to become China’s largest and most comprehensive healthcare service infrastructure, helping one billion users develop healthy lifestyle habits. Through its platform, AliHealth will enable early prevention, screening, detection, and treatment, infusing life with vitality.

“The future of the health industry lies not in some poetic ‘sea of stars,’ but right beside us, in returning to a focus on caring for the quality of each individual’s life,” said Zhu Shunyan.

Since last year, with the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic as a starting point, AliHealth has undertaken a series of explorations in the “Internet + Healthcare” sector, achieving notable successes. The Global Multi-disciplinary Consultation Center for COVID-19 (GMCC), operated by AliHealth, has received widespread recognition and demonstrated to the global public health community the broader possibilities of China’s “Internet + Healthcare” model. The pharmaceutical and healthcare segment has seen rapid growth in both revenue and user base, while innovations in models such as medical insurance integration have achieved breakthroughs. Yilu, a platform dedicated to healthcare services, has gained increasing popularity among younger users since its launch. Online appointment services for nucleic acid testing have served millions of users across China. Public welfare initiatives, including training programs for primary care physicians, have been rolled out in more than 100 counties nationwide. This year, AliHealth has further accelerated its efforts in frontier technologies, completing a strategic investment in LinkDoc Technology and a joint investment in InnoMass, a clinical mass spectrometry enterprise.