M3 has announced the acquisition of the Spanish company eDoctores Soluciones, the developer and owner of the mobile app iDoctus. This application, designed to serve patients online while reducing their trips to care centres, already works with around 500,000 doctors. Of these, some 150,000 practise in Spain, with the rest being in Latin America.

This operation expands and strengthens the Japanese group's presence in the Spanish-speaking market and adds to its global presence. M3 currently works with six million doctors in Japan, the United States, Europe and Asia. The company offers clinical decision support services, medical education, market research, clinical research, healthcare recruitment services and many other services.

Prescription support
iDoctus is established in the same line of business, as a provider of information for medical prescription support, in addition to other services to support doctors in clinical decision-making. Based in Madrid, it provides drug reference information, important scientific and clinical updates, and disease-specific point-of-care tools, such as interaction checkers, dosage calculators and medical scores.

Since it was launched in 2011, iDoctus has become one of the most widely used apps for doctors in Spain and Latin America, with specific content for a total of 19 countries in more than 50 specialities. Together with the users that M3 already had in Vademecum, 80% of practising doctors will be reached in Spain.

Reliable and useful medical services
M3 Board Director, Aki Tomaru, said, "The addition of iDoctus marks a very significant and important step for M3 in its mission to provide reliable and useful medical information and services worldwide. iDoctus' mobile application capabilities and strong medical user base provide us with an exceptional platform to drive innovation, improve efficiency and drive better healthcare outcomes in these markets."

Representing iDoctus, its CEO, Ángel Díaz Alegre, stated, "We are delighted that iDoctus is joining forces with M3, the global leader in the digital healthcare market. The combination of M3's global scale and broad portfolio of services and competencies with iDoctus' services and mobile focus will help us accelerate the development of innovative digital HCP (hosted communications platform) solutions."

^{Photo: iDoctus}