Japanese health-tech firm M3 acquires digital medical journal DailyRounds

Japanese medical information portal M3 Inc. has acquired a majority stake in Bengaluru-based DailyRounds, a provider of mobile and web-based applications for doctors and medical students, for an undisclosed sum.

The acquisition will help the Tokyo-listed healthcare company foray into case-based problem-solving community platform and medical test preparation business in India, it said in a press statement.

M3 Inc. is already present in India under the brand name of Health Impetus Pvt. Ltd (HIPL), a joint venture with Health Care at Home India (HCAH). HIPL runs an online portal named M3India which offers information on research, medical news, evidence-based medicine, practice guidelines and expert articles.

“With this majority acquisition, M3 will now be able to reach out to 450,000 doctors in India on a consolidated basis, while enhancing the utility and satisfaction levels among doctors by leveraging the strengths of both platforms,” said Amit Singh, CEO of HIPL. “It will also enable M3 to escalate its marketing support and market research businesses to pharmaceutical and medical devices companies through expansion of doctor membership and enhancement of medical education contents.”

M3 also intends to import services and technologies developed in Japan and other markets such as job placement support services and artificial intelligence applications to India.

M3 operates a web portal for medical professionals that delivers healthcare-related information to 270,000 physician members in Japan and 4.5 million physician members globally across multiple websites. The portal offers information on marketing, clinical trial, and various other services in healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.  

Neuroglia Health Pvt. Ltd (NHPL), the parent of DailyRounds, was founded by Deepu Sebin, Priyaank Choubey and Nimmi Cherian in 2015. DailyRounds is an academic network for doctors where they can access clinical case studies.

NHPL also runs Marrow, which is a test-preparation platform to enter post-graduate specialty courses in medical schools in India. The DailyRounds app has been downloaded more than 500,000 times since its release in 2015, and Marrow has been used by more than 300,000 test-takers since its release in 2017, the company claims.

“The Indian doctor community is very active on DailyRounds and Marrow. With the support of M3, we will offer better services to the existing doctors. Further we hope to bring in new doctors as well. The goal is to be the largest doctor network in India, not just by registered numbers, but in terms of active users as well,” said Sebin, CEO of NHPL.

The company is backed by investors like Accel Partners, Asuka Holding of Japan, Kae Capital, Powerhouse Ventures, Beenos founder Teruhide Sato, GSF India and Japanese VC fund Beenext.