Chinese medicine maker addresses global TCM gathering, bringing flagship heart pill to trial in Singapore

SINGAPORE — Famous Chinese medicine maker told a global gathering of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioners here Saturday that a 500-year-old tradition built on treating the whole patient and tailoring treatment has offered an Eastern answer to aging societies and chronic disease worldwide.

According to a press report issued by China News Service (CNS) , Tianjin Pharmaceutical Da Ren Tang Group, one of China’s oldest pharmacy houses, also announced it will bring an international randomized, double-blind, controlled trial of its flagship heart remedy, sold in English as Suxiao Jiuxin Pills, with Singapore General Hospital, the city-state’s largest acute tertiary hospital.

Wang Lei, chairman of Da Ren Tang and president of Tianjin Pharmaceutical Group, made both points in her address to the opening ceremony of the 23rd World Congress of Chinese Medicine in Singapore, noting the Chinese medicine’s holistic approach and pattern-based diagnosis give it an advantage in strengthening public health systems, and the industry must prove as much through internationally recognized, verifiable evidence, the CNS report said.

The study is the first time a Chinese proprietary medicine has been put through clinical trials at a major Western-medicine hospital in Singapore, the CNS report highlighted.

“We have always believed that Chinese medicine cannot stop at product exports,” Wang said, adding that the trial would offer clinical evidence that would be internationally recognized and verified.

The congress, hosted by the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies and organized by the Singapore Chinese Physicians’ Association, ran Oct. 16-18 at Raffles City Convention Centre under the theme “Addressing Global Health Challenges, Integrating Chinese Medicine into National Health Systems.” About 1,400 experts, officials and industry representatives from 25 countries and regions participated, CNS report added.

Wang devoted much of her speech, titled “Gathering the Wisdom of Traditional Medicine to Shoulder the Global Mission of Health,” to point out that traditional medicine belongs in the global public health conversation rather than on its margins.

Chinese medicine’s emphasis on the body as a whole, and on adjusting treatment to the individual patient’s pattern of symptoms, gives it a distinct advantage in strengthening public health systems, she noted.

For countries facing aging populations and a rising burden of chronic disease, TCM has amounted to “a valuable solution with Eastern characteristics”, Wang said, highlighting the contribution as part of China’s “Health Silk Road” vision, and one strand of China’s wider offer to global health governance.

Wang said Da Ren Tang’s roughly 70 years of exporting, begun in 1955, had taught the company that a remedy must suit the real health needs of the people who take it rather than be shipped abroad as a cultural product.

She set out a three-part plan: concentrate clinical research on cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, respiratory conditions, digestive health, musculoskeletal disorders and skin disease, working with overseas medical institutions to turn traditional experience into evidence regulators can evaluate; follow international research norms while pursuing product registrations and high-quality studies abroad; and accept that medical systems and regulatory cultures differ from country to country.

“We have to respect the medical systems and cultural contexts of each country and build an open, mutually trusting and mutually beneficial form of cooperation,” Wang was quoted as saying by CNS.

According the CNS report, the company is working with Singapore General Hospital on the study and hopes solid results will help traditional medicine enter national health systems and reach more patients overseas.

Wang called on the congress to bring Chinese medicine standards in line with international rules, to build platforms that share research results, and to tell the story of Chinese medicine to the world.

Da Ren Tang traces its pharmacy lineage to 1522 and has been listed in Singapore since 1997. The company holds 122 exclusive products and 599 drug approval numbers, sells more than 150 products in more than 20 countries and ranks among China’s top five exporters of traditional Chinese medicine, said the CNS report.