Taiwan has a great chance of making inroads into the world herbal medicine market, a participant at an international meeting in Taipei said yesterday.
Chou Chia-juei (
Chou noted that herbal medicines have become increasingly popular in the US and Europe in recent years and that annual global sales of herbal medicines surpassed US$20 billion last year, with the figure expected to hit US$24.4 billion next year.
He noted that China, Japan and South Korea as well as Germany and the US have become the strongholds of herbal medicine in Asia, Europe and America, respectively.
Herbal medicine emerged on the European market 50 years earlier than it did on the US market. Among European countries, Germany is a major market, and it is estimated that 80 percent of German people have tried herbal medicine, he said.
In terms of market share of global sales of herbal medicine last year, Europe topped the list with 41 percent, followed by North America with 22 percent, Southeast Asia at 17 percent and Japan at 14 percent.
Chou said the figure for Southeast Asia, which includes Taiwan, is surprisingly low, adding however that this also represents an opportunity as well as a challenge for Taiwan.
Meanwhile, Keith Chan (陳桂恆), senior vice president of the US-based GloboMax llc (環亞藥業), said in a speech at the symposium that there is a great potential for herbal medicine in the future pharmaceutical market, especially in the areas of cancer and AIDS treatment.
Chan said that as herbal medicines have been used in China for 5,000 years and the effects of many herbal medicines have already been confirmed, this will give them an edge over western medicines in terms of research and development risks and costs.
But Chen also said that the biggest problem that herbal medicine will face in making inroads into the global pharmaceutical market will be quality control and rigorous clinical testing.
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