At the time, Ma, who went by the pseudonym Geng Le, was closeted, married, and working as a police officer in Qinhuangdao, a small port city along the coast of Hebei province.
Public health bureaucrats were often ignorant about the needs of gay men, many of whom feared establishing government records of their sexual histories and HIV status.
The platform initially functioned as a pharmacy — users could submit their prescriptions online and then have medications delivered.
That led to a surge of investment in digital health care companies, according to a published in March by Deloitte China.