CHINA HEALTH SCIENCES NEWSLETTER
Vol. 3 , No.20 - August 2, 2002
TOPICS THIS ISSUE:
- New Light Shed on Medicine
- International Conference on Traditional Chinese Medicine to be Held in Chengdu
- Tibetan Medicine to Be Taught at Harvard University
- Illegal Diet Pill Crackdown
- Opinion: R&D to Replace Duplication in Medicine
New Light Shed on Medicine
Chinese scientists have made significant headway in the development of new approaches to make the vast amount of "medically useless" microbes into a new source of medicine.
Dr. Cui Chengbin, a researcher of pharmacology at Ocean University, Qingdao, in East China's Shandong Province, at a recent international symposium on molecular science held by the university in Qingdao revealed that his team has succeeded in making some once-inactive microbes produce bioactive metabolites that may be used as a source of future medicines.
Their research, once successfully completed, may lead to a revolution in the pharmaceutical industry, experts said.
Cui did not name the microbes cultured, but said the results were quite "encouraging" and proved their approach works. "Present results suggest our research strategy is in the right direction and feasible, although some techniques still need to be improved," he said.
(Source: China Daily)
International Conference on Traditional Chinese Medicine to be Held in Chengdu
The 2002 International Conference on the Modernization of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) will be held on November 3-5 in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan province.
The conference, said to be the largest in China's history, aims to promote the standardization of TCM production and quality, develop a modern TCM industry, and improve TCM research an official with the Ministry of Science and Technology (MST) recently stated.
Statistics indicate that worldwide consumption of natural medicines has grown at 15% annually since 1990. The TCM industry has attracted intense international attention from academic and industrial circles as well as many governments.
Senior officials from the United Nations, World Health Organization, and foreign science and health departments would attend the conference.
An exhibition of new TCM technology and products will also be held during the conference.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)
Tibetan Medicine to Be Taught at Harvard University
A Tibetan graduate student is scheduled to lecture on Tibetan medicine at Harvard University for three months starting from early September.
For thousands of years, Tibetan medical information and techniques were kept inside temples and lamaseries in Tibet. Tibetan medicine is based on experiences in life and production, incorporating traditional Chinese, ancient Indian and Arabic medicines.
Tibetan medicine is said to have miraculous curative effects on cerebrovascular disease, rheumatism, rheumatoid arthritis and chronic hepatitis. It is also notably effective against tumors, diabetes, blood diseases, hepatocirrhosis and other diseases.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)
Illegal Diet Pill Crackdown
China has launched a nationwide crackdown on the illegal practices among some health supplement makers off adding restricted pharmaceutical substances to slimming pills or exaggerating their effectiveness.
"Health Foods" designed to help weight loss, increase vigor, improve sexual performance or make people look beautiful would be major items for investigation, the Ministry of Health recently announced.
In China, health foods are defined as those foods taken by specific groups of people to improve bodily functions, but not for therapeutic purposes.
In recent times, China has seen a boom health supplements along with rapid improvements in average living standards and public awareness of health promotion.
Aiming to regulate the market, the government first introduced regulations on health foods in 1996, which involve the monitoring, approval, production, retailing and advertising of health food products.
Some health food firms exaggerate the health-promotion functions of their products through highly colored advertising to promote sales, said Wang Jianrong, an official with the ministry's department of law and supervision.
Of 13 brands of health food recently banned by the ministry, eight are diet capsules or pills containing fenfluramine, which used to be a component of slimming drugs but was outlawed in 1997 after it was linked to heart valve damage. Four other "nutritious drinks" or "vigor pills" were found to contain sildenafil citrate, the major component of the anti-impotence drug Viagra.
"Illegal activities have not only seriously misled customers, but also damaged the reputation of the whole industry," said Wang.
Businesses that had altered their products' instructions and labels would have to correct them by the end of September, otherwise face closure, Wang said.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)
Opinion: R&D to Replace Duplication in Medicine
China's pharmaceutical companies should further improve the quality and effectiveness of their products and end duplication at the lower levels.
In past years, the country's drug industry has developed with great speed. The total output value of the sector last year achieved a year-on-year growth rate of 15%. However, due to high economic returns and the promising future of this sector, there has been excessive development at low levels. Some local governments look on pharmaceutical factories as their pillar industry.
This gives rise to vicious competition and a waste of resources. This will be highly detrimental to the overall development of the sector. Coupled with China's admission into the World Trade Organization, the drug industry faces a new market environment.
Medicine is directly related to people's health but pharmaceutical enterprises mainly aim at economic returns. These two objectives sometimes cannot be reconciled in a market economy. Misleading advertisements of medicines that have little or even no effect may bring huge economic returns to pharmaceutical enterprises in the short term. However, it may also cause great economic losses to consumers and even pose a threat to their life.
Hence, the government should set higher standards for market access for medicine products compared to other products. Pharmaceutical administrations at different levels should always put consumers' interests above everything else and should not relax restrictions on the safety and effectiveness of medicine.
Whether or not a pharmaceutical company is competitive depends on how strong it is in research and development. The key to competitiveness lies in the constant development of new medicine, which, needless to say, requires huge investments in time and money.
Given that brand-name products are patented, the ability to develop new products is the key to enabling pharmaceutical companies to keep an upper hand in the market. That is why almost all world-famous pharmaceutical companies have set up their own research and development centers.
In this regard, China's pharmaceutical companies should pay attention to management of scale, since only in this way can they pump huge funds into research and development. Small enterprises may obtain certain economic gains from one product but they cannot develop in a sustainable way due to the lack of strong research and development capability.
(Source: China Daily)
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