One step closer

A Chinese herbal medicine for liver ailments has cleared a big hurdle with regulators in the United States, but there's still a long way to go. Liu Zhihua reports.

For Tarek Hassanein, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, it took a long time to learn and finally to pronounce "fuzhenghuayu (FZHY)". That's the Chinese name of a patented Chinese drug that treats liver fibrosis, the scarring process of the liver from injuries and diseases.

The drug is the third patented Chinese medicine that has successfully completed Phase Two clinical trials in the United States. Compound Danshen Dripping Pill achieved that in 2010 and Xuezhikang Capsules did so early this year. Hassanein is one of the prime researchers supervising the trials in the US that test FZHY's efficiency and safety while treating American patients with liver disease, mostly hepatitis C.