About M3 Healthcare Research
M3 is a healthcare market research company, headquartered in Tokyo and publicly traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The firm has offices in several countries, including the US, UK, France, Germany, China, India, and Korea.
M3 says it has the world’s largest proprietary panel of verified healthcare professionals: over 350,000 Japanese physicians and over 6.5 million global physician panel members, with members verified using photo ID. In 2021, M3 delivered more than 651,000 completed surveys across this panel, meaning ~10% of the members took a survey. The company has continued to grow strongly in recent years - for the nine months ended December 31, 2025, M3 Group revenue rose 28.6% year-over-year.
M3 was founded in 2000 by Itaru Tanimura, a McKinsey consultant. Initially, M3 was an online medical community for Japanese physicians, with an early investment from Sony Corporation. The company has spent more than two decades growing and acquiring healthcare panels and communities worldwide.
M3 timeline and notable events
- 2000
Founded as an online medical community for Japanese physicians, with an early investment from Sony Corporation.
- 2002
Acquired WebMD in Japan.
- 2003
Acquired MediPro from Sony.
- 2004
Listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
- 2006
Acquired MDLinx.com (USA) and Medigate.net (Korea).
- 2008
Acquired iTicket Corporation (Japan).
- 2009
Acquired Mebix (Japan), a clinical research firm.
- 2010
Acquired EMS Research (UK), and renamed the entire business M3 Inc. and international operations M3 Global Research.
- 2011
Acquired Doctors.net.uk (UK).
- 2012
Acquired MIC Medical and CMS (both in Japan).
- 2013
Acquired MedLive (China).
- 2014
Acquired Mediscience Planning (Japan).
- 2017
Acquired QQFS (Sweden) and Vidal Group (France).
- 2018
Acquired Wake Research (US).
- 2020
Acquired NAS Recruitment (US) and Manthan's healthcare MR division (India), later renamed to m360 Research.
- 2021
Acquired Ekas (Australia) and One Health Communications (UK),
- 2022
Acquired Pharma-insight (Germany) and 3H Holdings (Japan).
- 2023
Acquired two healthcare research businesses from Kantar Group: Kantar Profiles-Health and Kantar Media Healthcare Research, mainly serving Europe and the US.
- April 2023
Acquired Med Planet (France)
- 2024
Acquired Scribendi Inc. (Canada), strengthening a research paper editing platform; consolidated ELAN Corporation via a tender offer, offering patient support services.
- April 2025
Acquired EWEL, Inc., part of the "White Jack Project" aimed at pre-onset health maintenance.
- 2025
Consolidated DailyRounds, Inc., an Indian community platform for doctors and med students with 450,000+ members; listed subsidiary CUC, Inc. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Growth Market.
M3's services
M3 offers a range of market research services:
Full-service quantitative research: from programming to fielding to data processing. See our explainer on how the survey industry works here.
Qualitative research (including 1-on-1 interviews, focus groups, and online communities). See our explainer on how expert networks work here.
FAQ
M3 says it maintains the world's largest proprietary panel of verified healthcare professionals - over 350,000 Japanese physicians and over 6.5 million global panel members, verified using photo ID.
M3 specializes in full-service quantitative and qualitative healthcare market research, drawing on the world's largest verified physician panel, alongside related businesses in healthcare IT, clinical research support, and physician recruitment.
No - M3 is not part of the Inex One marketplace.
