Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2013-12-30
While China is facing obstacles in the Chinese herbal medicine market at home and abroad, countries including Japan, South Korea and the United States are importing considerable amounts of raw Chinese herbal ingredients and using them to manufacture Chinese patent medicines to earn sizeable profits.
A Tongrentang store in Beijing. Tongrentang is one of China's largest traditional Chinese medicine producers. (Photo/CNS) |
While China is facing obstacles in the Chinese herbal medicine market at home and abroad, countries including Japan, South Korea and the United States are importing considerable amounts of raw Chinese herbal ingredients and using them to manufacture Chinese patent medicines to earn sizeable profits.
More than
200 Chinese patented medicines will have to be pulled off the shelves in the
United Kingdom on April 30, 2014 for their failure to register in Europe in
accordance with regulations set by the European Union.
Non-governmental
organization Greenpeace released a report earlier in which Chinese herbal medicines
that were produced and sold by China's noted herbal brands in seven countries,
including the United States and the United Kingdom, were found to contain
pesticide residues.
Chinese
herbal suppliers based in China did not respond effectively to the restrictions
imposed in the overseas market to ease the market's trust crisis towards
China's herbal medicines, according to the Chinese-language China Business.
In the
meantime, foreign suppliers in South Korea, Japan and the United States have
cornered 90% of international Chinese patent medicine market. These countries
are buying raw materials from China and processing them into tablets or
capsules.
The
newspaper reported that two-thirds of the materials for Chinese patent
medicines in Japan are imported from China.
In addition
to China, Japan is the world's largest manufacturer and consumer of Chinese
herbal medicines, boasting at least 200 brand vendors. The prescription Chinese
herbal drugs market has grown by 15% a year and its annual sales have touched
US$1.5 billion.
Tsumura
& Co, Japan's largest Chinese patent medicine producer, is the largest
competitor against China as far as the internationalization of the traditional
medicine is concerned.
The
Japanese firm established Shanghai Tsumura Pharmaceuticals in 2001 and filed
applications of approval with the US Food and Drug Administration in 2005,
which affirmed its position not only in the Japanese domestic market but also
in the US market.
Eighty
percent of Tsumura's herbal medicines are imported from China as the company
builds over 70 herb growing bases that meet Good Agricultural Practice (GAP)
regulations.
The Chinese
market, on the other hand, trails far behind Tsumura's distribution. Tong Ren
Tang, a China-based pharmaceutical company, only has eight GAP bases in the
country even though it is the Chinese medicine pharmaceutical company with the
highest number of bases in the country.
A market
researcher stated that China's herbal medicine industry has to set up safety
standard to ensure the quality of herbs by setting up more bases that meet GAP
regulations.
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