State-invested Arura Tibetan Medicine Group is set to modernize production of Tibetan medicine which has more than 6,000 years of history. How does this play out?   The state-owned pharmaceutical company, with total assets worth 500 million yuan (62.5 million US dollars), specializes in research and development of Tibetan medicine and Tibetan medical education. For the past 10 years, the Arura Group company has been working to strengthen Tibetan medicine production by cultivating, organizing and protecting natural medical resources as well as developing innovative products.   Arura’s General Manager Duan Zhi said that Tibetan medicines has suffered lingering period of low production levels because of lack of research and product development support. Renewed efforts in 1990s led to the establishment of a drug manufacturing center in Qinghai province.   Drug products bear the Arura patent coupled with active marketing campaigns to promote the brand. At the same time, traditional production methods were supplemented with modern technologies.   New investments worth 60 million yuan (7.5 million US dollars) were made in 2004 to put up a fully automated drug production facility equipped with well-rounded testing and quality control systems in Qinghai biological technology park.   Currently, Arura owns 74 Tibetan medical products with national patents. Among these, 25 are wholly developed by the company and 12 are nationally protected traditional Chinese medicines.    Arura’s pharmaceutical production is supported by a continuous supply of human resources trained in Qinghai Tibetan medical school, which is part of the Arura corporate structure. Within this framework, the company provides scholarships and other financial support to medical students.  The school has produced more than 1500 tertiary educated medical personnel in the last 10 years.   Arura has also invested more than 4 million yuan (500000 US dollars) to edit China’s first series of Tibetan medicine teaching materials for undergraduates.   To protect endangered medicinal resources, Arura has facilities to artificially breed wild Tibetan herbs in four protected zones in Qinghai province. Efforts to foster cooperation between domestic and international research institutions are likewise pursued.   Xinhua