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Across China: College students open TCM decoction center in east China

Xinhua, January 8, 2016 Adjust font size:

Four college students in the east China province of Fujian saw a gap in the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) market, there was a lack of dedicated one-stop decoction shops.

Huang Xiaoqing, along with three fellow students from Fujian University of TCM, opened a decoction center and released an app to handle and deliver prescriptions.

Established in September, the center has earned more than 100,000 yuan (about 15,180 U.S. dollars) since it opened.

"On busy days we can have more than ten orders," said Huang, a pharmacy major, adding that many of the customers were college students.

TCM uses many different herbs and plants, which are often boiled to extract oils, fluids and other organic compounds. Some hospitals provide decoction services but independent centers are rare.

The procedure is time-consuming and long queues are common at hospitals. Huang said students at her university often had to wait in line for a very long time.

"We realized that we could offer this service," she said.

The university provided the team with a room for their center, and lent them decoction and packing equipment. The dregs are regularly collected as medical waste.

They now have 14 employees. Prescriptions are reviewed by doctors, who will let patients know if they found any problems.

The center charges three yuan for a dose if the customers bring their own raw materials, and 1.5 yuan if they buy herbs from the center.

The center is giving the students hand-on experience of pharmacology.

Zhong Peng, who works at the center, is a clinical medicine major.

"Working here is teaching me so much about TCM," he said. "You have to really understand the herbs used in TCM to give effective prescriptions."

The business has been an invaluable experience for Zhao Zhikun, one of the founders.

"Take procurement," he said, "we have to select the best raw materials."

They plan to advertise the center in other hospitals with a view, once the business gets bigger, to set up an independent company.

TCM gained public attention recently after pharmacist Tu Youyou was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her work using artemisinin to treat malaria based on a traditional Chinese herb treatment.

Zhan Zhikun hopes the center will help promote traditional Chinese medicine.

"It is the treasure of Chinese culture," he said. Endi