Irregular heartbeats - seemingly normal symptoms that can happen to almost anyone - which, however, can be fatal for heart disease patients, have driven Bai Donglu to find the country's first medicine to combat this hidden danger in people's life.
Bai, 65, a winner of the 2000 National Natural Science Prize for evolving a herbal alkaline to treat senile dementia, is now rolling up his sleeves to derive a treatment for arrhythmia from Febrifugine, a Chinese herb, following years of research.
"Now we have to depend on imported medicines to treat arrhythmia even though the results have proved to be unsatisfactory - either less-effective or having too many side-effects," said Lu Xingming, chief surgeon of the Cardiology Department at Shanghai Yueyang Hospital.
Bai, a professor of the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, an arm of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, began research in late 1970 on Febrifugine's capability to curb arrhythmia. Before that the herb was used to treat malaria during the Vietnam War in the 1960s.
But it was not until 1984 that Bai got the first grant of 100,000 yuan (US$12,000) from the National Natural Science Foundation to support his research. In the following 17 years when Bai finished his pre-clinical research, he only received 400,000 yuan and 2.5 million yuan from the Academy and the city's Commission of Science and Technology in 1997, respectively.
"If given a grant of 3 to 5 million yuan to support my clinical research, the medicine can hopefully be in the market in another three years," Bai said.
Bai's discovery, called sulcardine, has three advantages over its counterparts: it's a new chemical entity different from other medicines of its kind; it simultaneously uses calcium, potassium and sodium ions - elements which have proved effective in treating arrhythmia - while most other medicines rely on a single ion of the three; and probable less side-effects.
"The No. 1 challenge to my research comes from foreign pharmaceutical companies in the city, because they can shorten their research and development process thanks to favorable environment at home," said Bai, noting that he is awaiting approval from the State Drug Administration for his clinical research, which will lead to development of the medicine.
About one in four persons in the city has irregular heartbeat which can possibly lead to various heart diseases while there are less than 10 common medicines doctors who can pres-cribe for treatment, said Lu of Yueyang Hospital.
(Eastdaily.com 06/21/2001)
