Efficacy-oriented compatibility for component-based Chinese medicine

• Published in: Acta pharmacologica Sinica Vol. 36; no. 6; pp. 654 - 658
• Main Authors: Zhang, Jun-hua, Zhu, Yan, Fan, Xiao-hui, Zhang, Bo-li
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.06.2015; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Computational Biology - methods; Data Mining; Databases, Factual; Drug Combinations; Drug Synergism; Drugs, Chinese Herbal - adverse effects; Drugs, Chinese Herbal - therapeutic use; High-Throughput Screening Assays; Humans; Immunology; Internal Medicine; Medical Microbiology; Medicine, Chinese Traditional - methods; Molecular Targeted Therapy; Patient Selection; perspective; Pharmacology/Toxicology; Phenotype; Systems Biology; Systems Integration; Treatment Outcome; Vaccine; 中医药; 中药复方制剂; 新药开发; 治疗效果; 相容性; 组件; 药效学; 靶向药物; traditional Chinese medicine; efficacy-oriented compatibility; multi-target drug; component-based Chinese medicine
• ISSN: 1671-4083; 1745-7254
• DOI: 10.1038/aps.2015.8

Single-target drugs have not achieved satisfactory therapeutic effects for complex diseases involving multiple factors. Instead, innovations in recent drug research and development have revealed the emergence of compound drugs, such as cocktail therapies and ＂polypills＂, as the frontier in new drug development. A traditional Chinese medicine （TCM） prescription that is usually composed of several medicinal herbs can serve a typical representative of compound medicines. Although the traditional compatibility theory of TCM cannot be well expressed using modern scientific language nowadays, the fundamental purpose of TCM compatibility can be understood as promoting efficacy and reducing toxicity. This paper introduces the theory and methods of efficacy-oriented compatibility for developing component-based Chinese medicines.