ZC008

Herbal medicine seen promising in treating liver inflammation during lab tests
11/16/2007 (Taiwan News)

A Chinese herbal medicine coded ZC008 that can prevent inflammation and fibrosis of the liver has been proven in rats and will soon enter clinical trials in Taiwan and United States hospitals, local experts announced on Thursday.
"After conducting tests on lab rats, the Chinese medicine ZC008 proved effective in inhibiting liver inflammation and in repairing fibrous tissues in the rats' livers," said Hsu Shih-Lan, a medical expert in Taichung Veterans General Hospital's Molecular Oncology Laboratory, at a news conference held on Thursday to announce the result.

Hsu said the next step would be to apply to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to initiate a second phase clinical trial of the drug.

To accelerate the process and the drug's development, Hsu's team has cooperated with Cheng Yung-Chi, a professor in the Yale University School of Medicine's Department of Pharmacology, in the application and research stages.

Local clinical trails have also been planned with the hope that the medicine can hit the market in 2010, Hsu said.

She would not disclose the exact ingredients used in the liver medicine, saying only that it was based on herbs from the Crassulaceae, or orpine family of plants, a water-storing plant group that has succulent leaves.

Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and officials from the National Health Research Institute, Academia Sinica (中央研究院), and other related organizations attended Thursday's news conference.

The liver is the largest glandular organ in the human body and has many functions, including filtering harmful substances from the blood, breaking down fats, storing vitamins and minerals, and regulating glucose levels in the blood.

Abusive use of painkillers and alcohol or viral infections can lead to cirrhosis of the liver or hepatitis, and even liver cancer, which has been one of the top two most lethal cancers among Taiwanese in recent years.

Hsu said western medications used in treating liver disease had serious side effects and led to resistance to medications, but insisted the Chinese medicine under development was safe.

"The preliminary result of the Chinese herbal medicine in curing liver disease in lab rats is that it has proven effective and does not cause significant side effects," said Hsu, who described the discovery as great news for all sufferers of liver disease.

Hsu said she had devoted herself to the study of Chinese herbal medicine's application to liver disease because her mother-in-law had been diagnosed with liver cirrhosis several years ago.

"Doctors said that there was no cure for her disease so I tried herbal medicines on her instead," Hsu said, adding that her mother-in-law lived another 9 years after the treatment.

"This a precious discovery (made by local scientists) as there are only a small number among thousands of herbal medicines that can be used in curing liver disease," said Wang Tan-chiang, director of Taichung Veterans General Hospital. He said ZC008 was also expected to help treat fibrotic lung diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and cardiovascular disease.

Further clinical trials, Wang said, would prove the medication's effectiveness and could soon be used by patients in need.