Products from traditional Chinese medicine are being developed by researchers in Hong Kong to help in the fight against killer diseases hepatitis B and cancer.

HEPATITIS B
Phase II clinical trials for the potential Hepatitis B treatment are due to run at Prince of Wales Hospital until next year. If successful, larger scale trials will follow and the preparation, derived principally from the herb, Phyllanthus, will start selling in Hong Kong.
The larger scale trials could start as early as late next year. The research, now being conducted at CityU's Jacobsen Laboratory for Botanical Drug Research, builds on work by Nobel Prize winner Baruch Blumberg who set out in 1988 to discover herbal medicines capable of combating the Hepatitis B virus (HBV). The bitter tasting Herba Phyllantus from India was shown to have some effect.
From there, Prof W F Fong and his research team identified a species identical to the Indian herb growing in China which was well documented in traditional Chinese medicine.
The PhyllanPLUS formula is a combination of Phyllanthus, the roots of Panax notoginseng, and Astragalus membranaceus, and other herbs. The research has demonstrated that PhyllanPLUS has significant effects on inhibiting HBV-DNA replication and the secretion of HBV antigens, which both occur when the Hepatitis B virus is in an active state.
To address concerns of inconsistency and harmful contaminants in herbal products, the formulation of PhyllanPLUS includes stringent processing measures, from the extraction of vital ingredients to testing. Herbal ingredients are identified by chemical fingerprinting, and each batch is checked to ensure it is free of environmental contaminants such as pesticides and heavy metals.
Said Prof Fong: "Clinical observations suggest that PhyllanPLUS is as effective as the chemical drug a-interferon. In addition, there are no observable side effects." The Hepatitis B virus is particularly prevalent in China and southeast Asia where between 10 and 20 per cent of the population are carriers. No known drug is so far capable of permanently eradicating the Hepatitis B virus.

CANCER RESEARCH
In the anti-cancer research, clinical trials are yet to begin to determine whether novel compounds made from using a chemically modified component from the traditional Chinese medicine Mylabris, otherwise known as the blister beetle, can be used successfully in chemotherapy treatment.
Principal Investigator Prof Steve Au-Yeung said that the highly toxic substance, cantharidin, extracted from Mylabris has long been used to treat liver, lung, intestinal, and digestive tract tumors. By removing the methyl groups, to form demethylcantharidin (DMC), it became less toxic.
DMC attached to a holding agent, cis-platinum-diammine, created novel TCM-Pt compounds which showed anti-tumor activity. Cis-platinum-diammine was chosen because the drug Cisplatin is a widely-used Pt-based anti-tumor agent. Initial in vitro tests show the novel TCM-Pt compounds could be up to 18 times more potent than Cisplatin against liver cancer cells.
Prof Au-Yeung said: "We are now at a stage where commercial interest should come to take the project further. The normal course of drug development could take anywhere from 10 to 15 years." Patent protection has been secured in the US and China, and other patents are pending.