Standard Enhancement + Whole-Chain Traceability: Multiple People's Congress Representatives in the Traditional Chinese Medicine Industry Suggest Improving the "Last Mile" of Quality at the Source of Medicinal Materials | Two Sessions Financial Eye

Cailian Press, March 7th (Reporter Zhang Liande) Traditional Chinese medicine is a treasure of Chinese civilization and an important support for building a Healthy China. The quality of raw medicinal materials is the foundation for the high-quality development of the TCM industry. At this year’s National People’s Congress, several national representatives from the Chinese medicine industry offered suggestions on quality construction, focusing on two core areas: upgrading quality standards and improving the traceability system across the entire industry chain. They proposed a series of targeted recommendations to address industry development pain points and help establish the “last mile” of quality control at the source of medicinal materials.

Lu Qingguo, a National People’s Congress representative and Chairman of Morning Star Bio, told Cailian Press: “Although the country attaches great importance to this, current standards for Chinese medicinal materials and proprietary Chinese medicines still face prominent bottlenecks such as ‘low thresholds, broad indicators, and slow updates.’ The phenomenon of meeting only minimum standards is widespread, greatly weakening the quality assurance role of pharmacopoeias. Therefore, improving the quality standards for medicinal materials and proprietary medicines is crucial for protecting consumer rights, maintaining market order, and making rational use of medicinal resources.”

In response to these issues, Lu Qingguo brought several relevant suggestions to this year’s two sessions. In his proposal titled “Suggestions for Fully Improving Quality Standards of Chinese Medicinal Materials and Proprietary Chinese Medicines to Promote High-Quality Development of the TCM Industry,” he recommended comprehensively raising quality standards for medicinal materials, using mid-to-high quality authentic medicinal material producing areas as benchmarks, significantly increasing the effective ingredient standards in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, and improving multi-component, all-dimensional quality indicator systems. He also suggested setting transitional periods to guide cultivation toward advantageous regions and eliminate low-quality capacity in unsuitable areas. Additionally, led by the National Medical Products Administration, standards for proprietary Chinese medicines should be revised based on clinical value, strengthening full-process quality control from source to finished product to prevent waste and misallocation of high-quality medicinal resources, thereby maintaining a fair market environment.

Xu Haoyu, Secretary of the Party Committee, Chairman, and President of Yangtze River Pharmaceutical Group, told Cailian Press: “The quality of medicinal materials directly relates to the safety of people’s medication and the vitality of the industry. We need to not only develop quantity but also optimize and improve quality.”

During his research, Xu Haoyu found that although the scale of the Chinese medicinal materials industry continues to expand, quality chaos still restricts industry development. He proposed accelerating the construction of a full-chain quality credit assurance system for medicinal materials. He suggested building a high-starting-point, systematic national regional smart ecological planting demonstration zone in seven major medicinal material producing areas nationwide, emphasizing germplasm resource protection, smart planting models, and storage and logistics infrastructure. He also recommended establishing a nationwide integrated quality credit archive database for market entities and improving mechanisms for trust incentives and dishonesty penalties to strengthen the quality foundation from the source.

Zhao Jing, Vice Chairman of Bosheng Pharmaceutical, focused on building an information traceability system for the entire TCM industry chain. She proposed “Suggestions for Strengthening the Construction of the Entire Industry Chain Information Traceability System and Accelerating the Scientific Development of the TCM Traceability System.” She suggested speeding up the development of a comprehensive industry chain traceability system covering seeds, seedlings, cultivation, processing, and the production and circulation of proprietary Chinese medicines, promoting close integration of upstream and downstream industry chains, and supporting the high-end, intelligent, and green transformation of the TCM industry. Zhao Jing noted that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has built a traceability data platform covering 21 provinces and cities and 113 commonly used medicinal materials, with Yunnan and other regions forming characteristic traceability benchmarks. However, issues such as source data distortion, inconsistent standards, and “information silos” still exist.

She proposed five specific measures: improve top-level national policies, introduce dedicated traceability management regulations; develop national standards for Chinese medicine decoction pieces, standardizing coding and data formats; build a national integrated traceability data platform to achieve nationwide information connectivity; establish a long-term “government-industry-university-research-application” mechanism, strengthen third-party evaluation and social supervision; and cultivate digital and intelligent transformation enterprises in the TCM industry to empower the entire chain. She also suggested promoting the deep integration of artificial intelligence with the entire TCM industry chain to create an “AI + Blockchain” smart circulation ecosystem, enabling full lifecycle traceability from planting to circulation.

The suggestions from various representatives focus on different aspects but complement each other, forming a comprehensive development approach for the TCM industry—from source quality control and standard improvement to full industry chain traceability—aligning with the development requirements of “inheritance of essence, adherence to integrity, and innovation.”

With the gradual implementation of relevant policies and practical exploration by leading enterprises, a new pattern of high-quality development of the TCM industry based on quality, data, and traceability is accelerating. This will further promote the deep integration of TCM with the industry, allowing traditional Chinese medicine to better safeguard people’s health.