Three major bottlenecks are hindering innovation in China’s ethnic medicines.

　　Ethnic medicines represent a precious medical heritage accumulated by China’s ethnic minorities. In recent years, some ethnic medicines have made significant progress in China. However, as their scale and influence continue to grow, the inheritance, development, and innovation of China’s ethnic medicines have hit bottlenecks.

　　On April 14, the inaugural selection event for the National Ethnic Medicine Science and Technology Award was launched in Beijing. Co-sponsored by the Chinese Society of Ethnic Medicine and the China Association of Ethnic Medicine, and approved and registered by the Office of National Science and Technology Awards, this award is currently the only one of its kind in China’s ethnic medicine science and technology field. The establishment of this award marks the first time that China has begun to systematically organize and scientifically evaluate the teaching, research, and industrial sectors of ethnic medicine, and it will play a crucial role in enhancing China’s innovation capacity in ethnic medicine.

　　Bottleneck 1: A shortage of talent

　　For a long time, China has suffered from a severe shortage of R&D personnel in ethnic medicine, with an especially critical lack of successors. Even more scarce are versatile and high-level professionals. As a result, some ethnic medical knowledge, distinctive diagnostic and therapeutic techniques, and methods are on the verge of being lost.

　　Huang Fukai, Executive Vice President of the China National Medicine Association and Director of the Beijing Tibetan Hospital, told reporters that, much like traditional Chinese medicine, ethnic medicines throughout history have primarily relied on “oral transmission and hands-on instruction,” emphasizing the accumulation of individual experience and experiential learning. Currently, due to factors such as the aging of current practitioners, a sharp decline in the number of potential successors, and low educational levels among existing practitioners, the transmission of ethnic medicines has become severely constrained. As a result, the already scarce pool of ethnic medicine professionals is facing an imminent and serious crisis of generational discontinuity.

　　He said that for a long time, most ethnic hospitals have been plagued by poor working conditions, low salaries, and severe brain drain. Some indigenous ethnic medicine experts in China have even been lured away by foreign countries with similar cultural roots, offering them high salaries. As a result, the training of doctoral, master’s, and bachelor’s degree holders in ethnic medicine in China has increasingly shifted to overseas institutions. Moreover, for a considerable number of ethnic medicine specialties in China, there still aren’t any formal, established academic programs available domestically. As the older generation of indigenous ethnic medicine experts gradually retires, China’s ethnic medical community will face the growing concern of a serious shortage of qualified professionals.

　　Huang Fukai said, “The medical skills and techniques of renowned veteran experts are the core of the inheritance and development of ethnic medicine. In the process of inheriting ethnic medicine, we should first rescue and organize their medical skills, techniques, and clinical experience.”

　　Given the small number and limited scale of existing ethnic medicine colleges, as well as their incomplete faculty structures, Huang Fukai suggests that ethnic universities step up efforts to train professionals in ethnic medicine. Medical schools should offer master’s and undergraduate programs specializing in ethnic medicine, while also improving the compensation and benefits for ethnic medicine professionals to prevent talent drain.

　　The key challenges in developing talent for ethnic medicine mainly manifest themselves as follows: Many veteran ethnic physicians will find it difficult to continue practicing and passing on their knowledge due to language barriers and restrictions on professional qualifications; a large number of folk healers urgently need continuing medical education and professional qualification certification; there is a lack of effective mechanisms to attract professionals from related disciplines to participate in the research and development of ethnic medicine; and training ethnic physicians using Western medical models not only causes ethnic medicine to lose its unique ethnic characteristics but also complicates the inheritance and development of ethnic medicine itself.

　　Meanwhile, the inheritance, collation, research, and preservation of traditional ethnic medical literature have consistently been neglected. As the nation places increasing emphasis on ethnic medicine, the influence of ethnic medicine has gradually expanded, and the compilation and publication of ethnic medical literature have also begun to receive greater attention from relevant practitioners. However, the volume of Chinese translations of preserved ethnic medical texts remains relatively small, and there are even fewer monographs dedicated to specific branches of ethnic medicine. As a result, ethnic medicine is simultaneously hindered in terms of broadening its dissemination and expanding its scope of inheritance, as well as in deepening its research and exploration.

　　Bottleneck 2: Further efforts are still needed in research on heavy metal residues.

　　In public perception, ethnic medicines—especially Tibetan medicine—are often viewed as having high levels of heavy metals, which directly hinders the promotion and wider use of these medicines. To address this issue, research on heavy metals in Tibetan medicine has been included in China’s national support program.

　　Huang Fukai told reporters that research has been conducted on metabolomic profiling, component profiling, and the in vivo distribution of mercury compounds. Currently, some progress has been made, suggesting that these substances are unlikely to be directly absorbed and instead may repair nerve cells via the intestinal tract.

　　Lei Jufang, Chairperson of Qizheng Tibetan Medicine, told reporters that heavy metals are one of the components of multi-component Tibetan medicines. In long-term clinical practice, only Tibetan medicines known as “precious medicines” can include “Zuotai.” Zuotai is a copolymer of various heavy metals, including mercury, and is prepared using a unique Tibetan medicine processing method (the preparation process involves more than 20 steps and takes over 50 days to complete).

　　“Our research on the physical composition of Zutai and our clinical studies can mutually corroborate each other,” said Lei Jufang. “Zutai is safe to use—even at doses up to 50 times the normal amount—and no obvious toxic reactions were observed in experimental animals.”

　　In the past, evaluations of Tibetan medicine—as well as new drug development, OTC drug selection, and the choice of drugs covered by medical insurance—have often emphasized its high levels of heavy metals and toxic herbs. Such claims, however, lack scientific basis and rigorous analysis. Tibetan medicine boasts numerous advantages, including a long history, a well-established theoretical framework, comprehensive and unique therapeutic approaches, proven efficacy, and abundant resources, making it an important treasure within China’s pharmaceutical heritage. Yet for a long time, few professionals have engaged in thorough, in-depth discussions and research on Tibetan medicine. Instead, superficial understandings and mere impressions—especially the widespread propagation of inaccurate information—have led to simplistic conclusions such as “Tibetan medicine contains high levels of heavy metals and many toxic herbs.” These misconceptions pose significant obstacles to the wider adoption, research, and development of Tibetan medicine.

　　Bottleneck 3: Innovation capability needs to be improved.

　　In recent years, the output value of China’s ethnic medicines has been increasing rapidly. According to what our reporter has learned, Tibetan medicine alone has already reached a scale of nearly 10 billion yuan, while Jilin Province also harbors an ambitious goal of boosting the output value of Korean medicine to 10 billion yuan.

　　However, after several years of rapid development, it has become evident that ethnic medicines are facing a clear lack of sustained growth momentum. For some of China’s larger ethnic pharmaceutical companies today, the sustainable development of ethnic medicines has hit a bottleneck, and we’ve now reached a critical juncture.

　　Lei Jufang has consistently called for the secondary development of ethnic medicines. She believes that compared with traditional Chinese medicine and chemical drugs, innovating in the field of ethnic medicines presents certain challenges. Influenced by factors such as lifestyle habits and cultural heritage, ethnic pharmaceutical companies find it difficult to grow and fully leverage their unique strengths. Therefore, these companies should harness advanced technologies to transform traditional industries, thereby enhancing both the quality and modernization level of ethnic medicine products. “We’ve now reached a critical juncture in the development of ethnic medicines,” Lei Jufang emphasized. “It’s imperative to provide scientifically sound evidence of the efficacy of ethnic medicines and to improve their quality and standards through secondary development, thus elevating the overall quality of these products. If ethnic medicines are to become stronger and bigger, they must ‘enter the city and take the exam’—crossing this crucial threshold.”

　　Clearly, Qizheng Tibetan Medicine, led by Lei Jufang, is at a critical juncture in its journey of innovation. Facts have shown that selecting flagship products that have been tested and proven in the market and clinically recognized for secondary development can bolster the company’s long-term growth momentum and is key to its operational and developmental success.

　　Overall, the research bases for ethnic medicine across the country are relatively small in scale, with low levels of equipment and management. Research projects are fragmented, scattered, random, and involve multiple stakeholders, making it difficult to advance research efforts in a systematic and in-depth manner. Innovation in ethnic medicine represents a formidable barrier that is hard to overcome. Huang Fukai told reporters that the industrialization and informatization of scientific research within the ethnic medicine system are emerging fields in the realm of traditional ethnic medicines. While in other industries, research, education, and information technology development play a leading role, in the ethnic medicine sector, their impact remains remarkably weak. To ensure the adequate development of China’s ethnic medicines, it is essential to place greater emphasis on the knowledge-based industries within this field.

　　Source: Science and Technology Daily

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