KUALA LUMPUR (March 28): PUC Bhd is exploring a collaboration with Ali Health Sdn Bhd, the developer and exclusive owner of medical mobile application, Doctor2U, to promote blockchain technology in the healthcare industry.

The group's wholly-owned subsidiary, PUC (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, entered into a memorandum of understanding with Ali Health today, PUC said in an announcement.

The collaboration aims to provide blockchain to medical institutions, labs, drug supply-chain, and health insurance agencies, as well as build an information sharing platform among these institutions, regulators and insurers.

Both PUC and Ali Health will work together to provide safe, basic data for medical institutions for the purpose of internal performance evaluation, data regulatory decisions, big data analysis and other applications.

They also aim to target the needs of external data interaction, allowing sharing of "tamper-resistant and permanent data" with regulators and insurers, thereby eliminating repetitive verification work.

In addition to that, the collaboration seeks to smoothen the audit work of regulators as well as reduce the audit time of insurers to improve the efficiency of medical insurance, PUC said.

"The MoU will provide an opportunity for us to establish a collaboration based on our expertise and readily available resources to provide blockchain technology and related solutions, and Ali Health's Doctor2U platform," PUC said.

The group said it has developed new initiatives in artificial intelligence, blockchain, cybersecurity and financial technology, and aims to introduce these technologies to industry leaders to enhance their businesses and improve customer experience.

The agreement is effective for a twelve-month period from today.

Shares in PUC slid 1 sen or 5.41% to close at 17.5 sen today, giving the group a market captialisation of RM263.78 million.