"Deeper co-operation with foreign companies and adoption of Western chemicals to develop purification of natural medical plants are the only way to popularize the use of Chinese traditional medicine in the West," said Professor Wang Zhao from Tsinghua University's biological drug laboratory.

Wang rejected the idea that Chinese traditional medicine is equal to the rising popularity of natural drugs in the West, because the two are made under different theoretical principles.

Current natural medicine production in the West means products through chemical and biological purification of natural plants, which is still based on chemical sciences.

Therefore, Wang said that it is difficult for Western people to accept true Chinese traditional medicine despite its natural character, but that Chinese could learn the Western way to purify ingredients of their medicines.

In the process, however, it is said that many Chinese traditional medicines would be copied by foreign medicine makers. The topic became a hot issue again after a Guangzhou-based newspaper reported a cancer prevention medicine named Jinlong (Golden Dragon) Capsule may have been copied by the Swiss drug maker Novartis in its newly developed Gleevec.

Li Jiansheng, chairman of Beijing Jiansheng Pharmaceutical Company and inventor of Jinlong, said Gleevec was very similar to his drug in pharmaceutical theory and effects.

Two years ago, Li co-operated with a US scientist who claimed to have strong connection with Novartis to develop Jinlong Capsule. Later the co-operation was broken, but after Li found that Gleevec was like Jinlong in theory and effect, he suspected that the drug, which had been praised as an excellent orphan medicine in Europe and the United States, might have been copied.

"I have no evidence to prove this, and what I could do is to further develop my medicine to reduce losses caused by the similar drug," Li said.

Hu Ping, director of public affairs of Novartis China, said Gleevec is a chemical medicine and has nothing to do with Jinlong, of which she had never heard.

Wang from Tsinghua University, who used to participate in the testing of Jinlong, did not believe Gleevec was a copy.

"One can not judge that a Western medicine is copied from a traditional Chinese one merely from some similarities because the two are basically different."

The professor said though there was the possibility that some Chinese traditional medicine might have been copied by Western pharmaceutical producers, it was still necessary for the medicine makers to co-operate with Western institutes or to adopt Western chemical ways if they wanted to expand their market share in natural medicine.

It is estimated that the global natural medicine industry grows 30 per cent a year. However, China shares less than 3 per cent of the world's US$27 billion natural medicine market.

Wang said that the copying of Chinese traditional medicine is not something to worry about, because most of them are open in medical books.

But Chinese drug makers should patent their techniques of making traditional medicines during the co-operation with their foreign counterparts as the technique is main factor in production.

"Meanwhile, we should not give up the development of Chinese medicine under traditional theories because some are beyond the capability of Western chemical and biological sciences to explain," he said.