Monday July 24, 4:30 am Eastern Time Softbank unit, VerticalNet plan medical Web site
TOKYO, July 24 (Reuters) - Softbank E-Commerce Corp, a unit of Japanese Internet investor Softbank Corp , said on Monday it had formed a joint venture with VerticalNet Inc (NasdaqNM:VERT - news) for e-commerce in pharmaceuticals and medical equipment.
The joint venture, named VerticalNet Japan Corp, capitalised at 400 million yen, is owned 60 percent by Softbank E-Commerce and 40 percent by VerticalNet, a U.S. operator of a leading Internet network of business-to-business industrial trading communities.
The company will start to operate a Web site in September for Japanese makers of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment with URL of verticalnet-japan.com, claimed to be Japan's first such site.
It will list items including suppliers of pharmaceuticals, raw materials for drugs, medical equipment, analytical equipment and manufacturing equipment.
Six to 10 branch sites will be set up by March 2002, a Softbank spokesman said.
The news came after the Tokyo stock market closed. Softbank's shares closed at 11,190 yen on Monday, down 5.49 percent.
biz.yahoo.com |
