Artemisia annua, or sweet wormwood, are widely grown in Luofushan Mountain in Guangdong. [Photo/China.org.cn]

Deep in the hot, humid and misty mountain of LuoFu, ancient elixirs for health and well-being were once concocted. It is from this same ancestral place that a clear line can be drawn to Tu Youyou's Nobel Prize discovery, one that has since saved millions of lives across the world.

During the late 1960s, as part of China's efforts to support North Vietnam in their war against the Americans, scientists were asked to devise a way to combat Malaria. The mosquito-borne disease was becoming resistant to existing drugs and was killing large numbers, even in southern China.

It was during this time that Tu picked up a venerable handbook, written 1,600 years ago by one of the fathers of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Ge Hong, titled "Emergency Prescriptions Kept Up One's Sleeve." The book reportedly originates from LuoFushan Mountain, after Ge spent years studying the health benefits of various flora native to the mountain. Among them, a recipe using Artemisia annua or sweet wormwood, contains the inspiration as well as the active ingredient that Tu extracted to treat malaria symptoms.

"Artemisinin is a gift for the world's people from traditional Chinese medicine," read a statement by the Institute of Chinese Materia Medica at the Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences where Tu works.

Modernizing traditional medicines

As the Chinese medicinal market grows exponentially, many pharmaceutical companies have looked to TCM as a potential source of new remedies. Although Tu's use of TCM is a success story, the scientific effects and benefits of other methods are still being debated.

While in 2007, the Scientific journal Nature described TCM as "fraught with pseudoscience," the placebo effects of certain methods cannot be denied. Ted Kaptchuk, a researcher of the placebo effect at Harvard, has had years of experience leading up to his book The Web That Has No Weaver, about Chinese medicine. In recent work, Kaptchuk studied the effect of fake acupuncture treatments and how patients responded and claims that the use of placebos can be powerful on certain individuals.

Chen Xinquan, executive director at Luofushan Sinopharm Co.,Ltd which produces modern versions of TCM, disagrees. "Some people think that TCM does not have a scientific foundation and that is because they do not know about it," he says. "We're trying to make people get a deeper understanding about TCM and we're trying to make it known, especially to foreigners."

Growing market

As TCM and holistic medicines gain popularity in the west, obstacles to this emerging market begin to arise. Although Sinopharm, founded in 1970, already has some success among Southeast Asia, Chen states that "The biggest problem for Chinese TCM companies is that there are still very different standards and requirements for medical products abroad, compared to the Chinese market."

However, Chen asserts that "our company is working in recent years to gradually adapt to these foreign standards," and plans to increase exports in the long term. "If Western consumers have learned through the use of our products that traditional herbal medicines are both safe and effective, we are confident that we can gain their trust for TCM products in the long term."

While several Chinese companies continue to explore the potential of these medicines, entering foreign markets and globalizing may constitute the largest challenge yet.

Related

• TCM products find their niche overseas
• TCM gaining recognition with Western institutes

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