China's Drugmakers Move Marketing Into Medical AI Apps
China's pharmaceutical companies are exploring paid promotion inside the AI assistants that doctors now consult for clinical answers, after a corruption crackdown made the traditional sales visit harder.
The apps resemble OpenEvidence, the American tool that answers clinical questions with cited research and is not sold in China. Alibaba Health and JD Health both launched versions this year, and both are now discussing how drugmakers might appear in the answers.
And the model Alibaba Health is considering is the one that should worry anyone who trusts these tools. Wang Xiangzhi, its chief technology officer, told Reuters the company may let promoted medical research and clinical evidence appear beside AI answers to physician questions, in the way OpenEvidence does, with drugmakers paying for the placement.
"Today, many pharmaceutical companies, in order to influence doctors and bring their drugs to market, need to invest a large amount in marketing budgets," Wang said. If doctors gather on one platform, he added, those budgets move online. He said Alibaba Health has not started such work yet, but that interest from domestic and foreign firms was very strong.
The audience is real. Alibaba Health found 93 per cent of the hundreds of doctors it surveyed use AI tools, up from about 70 per cent a year earlier. Frost and Sullivan expects digital health marketing to grow 27.5 per cent a year from 2027 to 2030, reaching 274.4 billion yuan, or about 41.1 billion US dollars.
But the reason the money is moving is regulatory rather than technological. A multiyear anti corruption drive tightened this summer with new rules on the employees who carry product information to doctors and hospitals, and at least two listed drugmakers have said the restrictions hurt sales.
JD Health's Zhiyi assistant is already embedded in an app run by medical education firm PICA Health, which said earlier this year that it would offer drugmakers digital promotion and physician education. Yidu Tech has fielded approaches about its Yidu Evidence app, though an executive said it does not yet offer the function, and Roche and Bayer each confirmed they are watching the space.
The unresolved question is disclosure. A doctor typing a clinical question needs to know whether the evidence in front of her was placed there because it is the best answer or because a company paid for it, and none of the firms described a labelling standard for promoted content.
So China may become the first market where advertising inside medical AI is routine, and the test will be whether a doctor can tell an answer from an advertisement.
Chinese drugmakers are exploring marketing inside AI tools that doctors consult
Alibaba Health may place promoted clinical evidence beside answers in its Hydrion app
93 per cent of doctors surveyed by Alibaba Health use AI tools, up from about 70 per cent
Digital health marketing in China is forecast to grow 27.5 per cent a year to 2030
The shift follows a crackdown that restricted drugmaker visits to hospitals
Source: Reuters
