The Current Situation of Japanese Medicinal Plants Industry and its Significance on the Pharmaceutical Industry 3-2 - 農業知識入口網

3-2. Stable procurement of crude drugs

The market sales of Kampo formulations for prescription have steadily increased in the recent years. However, the declining NHI price and reduction in weighted average sales price from greater usage of low-priced formulations have led to crude drug demand surpassing the actual sales of Kampo formulations. With every 8% increase in crude drug exigency each year, it is estimated that the amount that will be required in nine years will double from now.

China has always been the single, greatest source of crude drugs. However, in order to protect the environment and fertile land from turning into desert, the exportation of Glycyrrhiza and Ephedra Herba from China is currently limited. This foretells
the potential risk in relying on one country as the main source of procurement. Domestic cultivation of medicinal plants in Japan is trekking a downward trend also due to aging farmers, greater profit from cultivation of other crops, and defeating price
competition with Chinese suppliers.

Crude drugs that are mainly domestically cultivated (2002) 1) include bamboo grass (Sasa veitchii ; 20t), Zedoary (20t), Cnidium Rhizome (12t), Artemisia (10t) and Zanthoxylum Fruit (10t). The Research Center for Medicinal Plant Resources – National Institute of Biomedical Innovation publishes “Medicinal plants – cultivation and quality evaluation” (volumes 1-11 covering 58 medicinal plants/crude drugs) 15) with the purpose of promoting cultivation techniques. The following items are described
in these documents:

(1) name and origin, (2) medicinal part, (3) (aspect) properties of plant, (4) (aspect) characteristics of crude drug and production area, (5) characteristics of cultivated species, (6) cultivation method, (7) quality evaluation of crude drug, (8) classification table of characteristics, (9) cultivation almanac, (10) data.

Breedings of medicinal plant seeds are performed by a small fraction of the industry and by the Research Center for Medicinal Plant Resources – National Institute of Biomedical Innovation. ReGIStration and application of seeds can be found on the webpage of Ministry of agriculture, forestry and fisheries16).

A better procurement system that relies less on China for import and more on domestic cultivation of medicinal plants must be actualized in the near future.