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HerbalEGram: Volume 8, Number 6, June 2011
English Version of Chinese Pharmacopoeia to be
Released This Summer
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The latest English version of the Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China (ChP)—an expansive text that includes an entire volume on herbs—will be released this summer.
Aimed at increasing quality, safety, and efficacy of drugs and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) within China, the ChP details the minimum national standards to be met by all drug and TCM companies throughout development, manufacturing, distribution, use, and management.1 “Otherwise,” said De-An Guo, PhD, vice-editor-in-chief of the 2005 ChP, “they are substandard or faked products” (e-mail, May 26-27, 2011).
The upcoming English ChP will be a direct translation of the most recent Chinese language ChP released in October of 2010. It is the third English edition since the first ChP was published in 1953, with previous English editions released in 2000 and 2005. According to Dr. Guo, the ChP was translated into English in order to increase international communication and scientific exchange, and also due to the increasing international trade in TCM herbs. Dr. Guo, who was recently welcomed as a new advisory board member of the American Botanical Council, is a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, director of the National Engineering Laboratory for the Standardization of TCM Technology, and director of the Research Center for Modernization of TCM.
As the most extensive edition thus far, the 2010 ChP (and soon-to-be-released English edition) has been significantly updated and expanded from the 2005 version. It includes 3 volumes: Volume I for herbal medicines and some minerals and animal-derived TCM products, Volume II for chemical drugs, and Volume III for biological products. Volume I features 2,136 monographs, 990 of which are new admissions and 612 are revisions.1 Three of these additions—appearing in the ChP for the very first time—cover species from the genus Callicarpa: Callicarpae Macrophyllae Folium, Callicarpae Caulis et Folium, and Callicarpae Formosanae Folium.2 Preparations featuring these herbal drugs are often used in Asia for internal and external bleeding, rheumatism, digestive and intestinal problems, and oral infections.
Updated features of the 2010 ChP particularly focus on more stringent and advanced testing technologies and analytical methods. Volume I, for example, explains how TCM products can be identified and assayed by liquid chromatography-mass spectroscopy (LC-MS), DNA markers, and thin-layer chromatography (TLC).1
Additional herb-related updates include 14 new admissions and 54 revisions in Volume I’s appendices, the re-standardization of names of Chinese herbal materials in order to comply with the international system of nomenclatural standardization, and the deleting of endangered and rare wild Chinese herbal species in order to reduce the use of such species and thereby promote sustainable development of TCM.1
To purchase a copy of the English ChP, please contact Dr. Guo at daguo@mail.shcnc.ac.cn. Volume I, which contains 1,248 main pages and 141 appendix pages, can be purchased separately from the entire 3-volume set for about $300.
—Lindsay Stafford
References
1. Zhong-zhi Q, Dan Y, Yan-ze L, Yong P. Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China (2010 Edition): a milestone in development of China’s healthcare. Chinese Herbal Medicines. 2010:2(2).
2. Dan Y, Zhong-zhi Q, Yan-ze L, Guo-ping Z, Yong P, Pei-gen X. New collection of crude drugs in Chinese Pharmacopoeia 2010 I. Callicarpa Linn. and Related Items. Chinese Herbal Medicines. 2010:2(4); 272-288.
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