Salvia Miltiorrhiza: From the field to the bedside

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has over 3000 years of history to treat diseases in China and has played a pivotal role in the Chinese health system. But its observation- or experience-based feature requires for the solid scientific evidence in quality, safety and efficacy to evolve it into an evidence-based medicine system. In the past 20 years or so, great progress has been achieved on the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine in China. Here we examined a typical Chinese medicinal herb named Chinese Salvia from its field cultivation to the basic research and finally to the development of marketed drug to reflect the recent achievements in the modernization of traditional Chinese medicines. Salvia miltiorrhiza was one of the earliest recorded Chinese herbs in “Shennong Bencao Jing” dating back to the Han dynasty. Since then, it was recorded in almost all ancient herbal books and now in Chinese Pharmacopoeia. It is now widely cultivated in the middle parts of China including provinces of Henan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Sichuan and Zhejiang. The phytochemical investigation showed that it mainly contains salvianolic acids and tanshinones as its active components. Quantitative and qualitative determination and phytochemical profiling by series of hyphenated techniques clarified its main active constituents and minor ones. Pharmaokinetic investigation was thoroughly carried out to clarify its metabolic pathways. Biological research including adoption of systems biology approaches shed light on its action of mechanism and regulation network for the targeted proteins. The above-mentioned research laid a solid foundation for its clinical usage and new drug development. In the past years, a series of finished products directly developed from this herb or products using Danshen as the main ingredient have been marketed in China and now the total annual groß sales of Danshen related products reached 5 billion dollars. To name a few typical products are Depside salt (0.8 billion $/year), Dantonic pill (0.5 billion $/year). The future perspective of TCM modernization will be finally projected.