Investigation of China’s Yunnan pharmaceutical industry derived from two ethnomedicines, Yi medicine and Dai medicine

Background: Yunnan Province is a multi-ethnic area located in the southwest of China, and she also is rich in Chinese matiera medica resources, known as the ‘kingdom of plants’. There is abundant of ethnomedicine resources in Yunnan province and many ethnic minorities inherit and retain numerous knowledge of traditional medicine. The biomedicine and big health industry have been the pillar industry of Yunnan since 2016, which is the important pharmaceutical industrial base for Dai Medicine and Yi Medicine in China, for example Yunnan Baiyao with “amazing efficacy” and originating from a Yi medical formula. Yi medicine and Dai medicine of Yunnan Province were investigated in this work focusing on the basic information of Dai patent medicine (DPM) and Yi patent medicine (YPM), including the clinical indications, herbal resources and their sources of traditional knowledge. Methods: The data and information were collected from the published literatures and some public service websites, and the data base of DPM and YPM was established including the information about manufacturer, approval number, clinical indication, prescription composition, dosage form of drug, etc. We investigated the references and literatures including the publicly available pharmaceutical instructions ensuring the authenticity and reliability of the investigation. Results: The results showed that there were 28 varieties of DPMs and 73 varieties of YPMs approved to use in clinical according to the drug regulatory laws of China. In the DPMs and YPMs, about 109 and 197 herbal medicines are recorded in China Pharmacopoeia, 18 and 52 herbs are recorded in Standards for Chinese medicinal materials in Yunnan Province respectively. Nearly 20 herbs have not any quality standard. Among these herbal medicines, there are 10 herbs considered as Dai Medicine and 30 herbs as Yi Medicine. In order to produce these DPMs and YPMs, about 16 animal medicines and 17 rare and endangered medicinal materials would be collected and used. Conclusions: The investigation would provide a more detailed report on Yunnan ethnic medicine industry, and it should be believed reasonably that the ethnomedicine of Yunnan Province will give more choices for human health through scientific experiments and dealing with the sustainable utilization of medicine resources.