Chifeng Arker Pharmaceutical Technology Co Ltd General Manager Yu Xiaoli really wants to just provide chemo-synthetic Pseudoephedrine HCI to her clients and focus on offering good products and service.

Her company is, so far, the only one in China that can produce these materials, which are widely used to produce medicines for various afflictions such as the common cold.

Pseudoephedrine HCI, or just ephedrine, is also an important material for producing ice, which is forbidden and not the direction Yu's company is taking.

"I only want to produce ephedrine through the chemo-synthesis process because the natural extraction process, which is based on Chinese ephedra, seriously destroyed the grasslands," Yu said.

After growing up on the grasslands of Chifeng in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, she is a major backer of chemo-synthetic Pseudoephedrine HCI in China, but is sentimental about the grasslands.

Every year, China produces about 400 tons of Pseudoephedrine HCI series products, which consume more than 100,000 tons of Chinese ephedra, or Ephedra sinica.

People have to destroy about 140,000 hectares of grassland to obtain so much Chinese ephedra, Yu told Chinese Business Weekly.

Every year, China exports about 200 tons of Pseudoephedrine HCI series products made of Chinese ephedra, which brings revenues of US$6.5 million including taxation valued at 2.1 million yuan (US$250,000).

However, China is expected to invest more than 200 billion yuan (US$24 billion) into preventing further desertification by planting trees and grass in western areas by the year of 2010.

From this point of view, "we have gotten a small profit after paying a huge cost," Yu said.

Meanwhile, it has been proven that it is quite difficult to artificially plant the valuable shrubs, which are very important for preventing the grasslands from becoming desert.

More than 95 per cent of Chinese ephedra, which is used to produce ephedrine in China, are natural ones.

Among 27 factories which are producing ephedrine series products in China, Arker is the only one that has the technology and ability to use chemo-synthesis methods.

Most of these factories are located in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and Gansu and Shanxi provinces.

Yu and her research group succeeded in inventing the chemo-synthesis methods in 1999 and Chifeng Pharmaceutical (Group) Co Ltd established Arker to produce ephedrine.

The department includes a production line, which can produce chemo-synthetic ephedrine every year, that began operations in October 2001.

And as the second phase of the project will be finished in the near future, Arker can then produce 300 tons of ephedrine a year.

The 300 tons of chemo-synthetic ephedrine means that more than 100,000 hectares of grassland will be saved annually.

"We still have to produce big orders of ephedrine products through the natural extraction process, mainly because many domestic clients still only want to buy ephedrine made of Chinese ephedra," Yu said.

They still think that the ephedrine made of Chinese ephedra is better than chemo-synthetic ones, although scientific research shows that they are just the same.

The government needs to take effective measures immediately to stop the destructive collection of Chinese ephedra and encourage enterprises to develop chemo-synthetic products, experts said.

In fact, both the domestic and overseas ephedrine markets are in a lull now.

"Only half of the ephedrine products produced in China, 400 tons a year, can be sold now, and moreover, their prices have been decreasing rapidly in recent years," said Arker Vice-General Manager Zhou Chunhu.

The world market consumes about 1,500 to 2,000 tons of ephedrine products a year. Half of these are provided by German sources, which also use chemo-synthesis methods instead of natural extraction ones.

"I hope those medicine producers who have a strong sense of social responsibility and environmental protection choose to make chemo-synthetic ephedrine, which can also encourage other ephedrine producers to use the chemo-synthesis process," Yu said.

(Business Weekly 06/01/2004 page10)