“Bio-transformed bear bile powder,” of non-bear origin, shows promise of overtaking the bear bile industry
SHANGHAI, China––The good news for bears in China appears to be that the bad news reported recently by hunting writer Ted Williams via Animal Wellness Action is not quite as bad as it looks, based on scientific journal reports, even though it is quite as bad for the thousands of individual bears imprisoned in tight iron cases to be “milked” for their bile.
First, though, before getting to the good news, must come a quick review of the bad news about a cruel industry that ANIMALS 24-7 was among the first to expose to the world more than 30 years ago, after more than a decade of exposing bear poaching in the U.S. and Canada motivated by the high prices paid by traditional Chinese medicine merchants for bear gall bladders.
(Asia for Animals photo)
Bile farming slowed but did not end bear poaching
Bear bile farming, developed in North Korea in the late 1970s, eventually knocked the bottom out of the overseas poached bear gall bladder market, after spreading to China, Vietnam, Laos, and South Korea.
There remains, however, a considerable market for poached bear gall bladders for traditional Chinese medicinal use within the U.S. and Canada.
Under global humane pressure, rallied initially by the International Fund for Animal Welfare and since 2000 by the Animals Asia Foundation, operating sanctuaries for rescued former bile farm bears in both China and Vietnam, the bear bile industry for about 20 years contracted.
However, updated Animal Wellness Action and Center for A Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle on February 5, 2025, “In a knock-you-off-your-feet tremor of the COVID-19 crisis, some Chinese government officials declared that Tan Re Qing—an offering in the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) pharmacopeia, with its main ingredient being bear bile—can be used as a palliative for the symptoms of the virus.”
Old information, but current concern
The declaration Pacelle mentioned was actually issued five years earlier, in March 2020, but the concern Pacelle expressed is real, and remains, especially if bear bile should similarly be advanced as a possible treatment for the H5N1 avian influenza in humans.
“With tens of millions of people infected just a couple of years ago, what would become of hundreds of thousands of bears, across all eight surviving bear species, should demand for bile surge?” Pacelle asked.
“Getting bile from a bear is not like drawing milk from a cow,” Pacelle continued. “You must grievously injure the bear, or kill him or her. To extract the bile, you kill a wild bear. Cut open the bear and pull out the gallbladder. And then extract the bile contained inside it. Or you imprison bears and stab them with a catheter and extract the bile from the bears without anesthesia.
“Bear bile farms are being phased out in South Korea and Vietnam,” Pacelle acknowledged.
(Beth Clifton collage)
What Ted Williams said
Pacelle then introduced Ted Williams’ article Bear Gall Bile Market Threatens Earth’s Eight Bear Species.
The claim that the bear gall bile market might threaten all bear species is somewhat inaccurate, inasmuch as giant pandas, who are primarily vegetarian, and exclusively native to China, do not produce ursodeoxycholic acid, the bear bile ingredient with purported medicinal qualities.
This, even more than conservation concerns, is probably why giant pandas were not exterminated by poaching long before they were legally protected, and is why, unlike Chinese moon bears, giant pandas have never been farmed for bile extraction.
“Bear bile can’t cure anything,” Willams wrote, “but it eases discomfort of sundry liver disorders and, at least according to a 2022 proclamation by the Chinese Ministry of Health [again, actually issued in 2020], COVID 19. While it has been seen to dissolve human gallstones, other far more effective and far less costly treatments are readily available.”
Synthetic “bear bile” from cows has been available since 1955
“In 1955 Japanese scientists synthesized bear bile,” Williams mentioned. “You can buy it at most any pharmacy under the brand name Actigall,” otherwise known as Ursodiol, synthesized from concentrated bovine bile, “and it is much cheaper than the actual product. So for 70 years there has been no need to harvest bile from bears or traffic in bear gallbladders.”
Yet the bear bile industry continues.
The Shanghai Kaibao Pharmaceutical Company
“In 2022,” Williams reported, “the China-based market research firm QY Research estimated that the Chinese market for bear bile powder was worth nearly $62 million — almost 97% of the global market. And its value is expected to increase.
“According to the report, China sold 44.68 tons of bear bile powder in 2021,” at the height of the COVID 19 pandemic.”
Marketed as Tan Re Qing, bear bile powder is believed to be the most profitable product sold by the $1.6 billion-per-year Shanghai Kaibao Pharmaceutical Company, headquartered in Shanghai.
The Shanghai Kaibao Pharmaceutical Company appears to hold about half of the total global market share for bear bile products.
“The very words COVID and bear bile in China are super-sensitive,” ANIMALS 24-7 was told by animal advocates within China, but considerable information about the Shanghai Kaibao Pharmaceutical Company and Tan Re Qing is available from international business media.
Post-COVID 19 sales slump
For example, says Pitchbook, headquartered in Seattle, Washington, the Shanghai Kaibao Pharmaceutical Company “produces traditional Chinese medicines in the form of solid dosage, oral liquids, and small volume injections. Its main product is Tan Re Qing injection, mainly used for pneumonia, acute and chronic bronchitis, and upper respiratory tract infection.”
“Tan Re Qing,” ANIMALS 24-7 was told, “was previously promoted in some formal channels as helping with some effects of COVID 19, such as high fevers and temperatures, inflammation etc.”
Post-COVID 19, however, “It seems that sales of bear bile have reduced again in China,” an inside source said.
Industry attempts to boost bear bile consumption by finding new uses for it are constant, typically announced in scientific journals.
Bear bile promotional science
The most recent example appears to be “The Tan-Re-Qing Capsule mitigates acute lung injury by suppressing the NLRP3 inflammasome and MAPK/NF-κB signaling pathways,” published in Gene, Volume 933, on January 15, 2025.
But, the inside source suggested, “You might be interested in the research and production of something called biotransformed bear bile, a mirror image of real bear bile that several pharma companies Shanghai Kaibao Pharmaceutical Company are producing in China today, from the by-products of slaughterhouse animals, mainly chickens.”
South China Morning Post reporter Jennifer Ngo affirmed the Shanghai Kaibao Pharmaceutical Company interest in “synthetic alternatives” to bear bile as far back as July 31, 2014.
Biotransformed bear bile science
“There seems to be growing support for such production as an alternative to bear bile,” the inside source told ANIMALS 24-7, also mentioning “rumors that such a product might one day be obtained from non-animal sources.”
Scientific journal articles promoting biotransformed bear bile are easily found.
One example is “Biotransformed bear bile powder ameliorates diet-induced nonalcoholic steatohepatitis in mice through modulating arginine biosynthesis,” from the journal Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy, Volume 168, December 2023.
Another is “Biotransformed bear bile powder alleviates diet-induced nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in mice by regulating the gut microbiota and reversing lipid metabolism,” from the Arabian Journal of Chemistry, Volume 17, #2, February 2024.
Political obstruction
Some elements within the Chinese bear bile production industry appear hellbent on politically obstructing the introduction of biotransformed bear bile, as evidenced by Controversy Arises: Revocation of Bio-Transformed Bear Bile Powder Standard by Hainan Province, published in 2003 by the Political Research Office of China Biodiversity Conservation & Green Development Foundation.
According to this paper, “Bio-transformed bear bile powder is a new alternative product that responds to the country’s call to reduce and gradually ban live bear bile harvesting, replaces live bear bile harvesting with in vitro cultured bear bile technology, and at the same time ensures that bio-transformed bear bile powder has the same performance as bear bile.
Announced & then revoked standard
“On December 17, 2022,” the paper reported, “Hainan Provincial Drug Administration officially issued the Chinese Medicinal Material Standard for Bio-transformed Bear Bile Powder (standard number: Qiong YCB2022-001), and the local standard was officially implemented as of the date of publication.”
However, the paper continued, “Hainan Provincial Drug Administration issued an “Announcement on Revocation of Chinese Medicinal Material Standard for Bio-transformed Bear Bile Powder in Hainan Province” on August 17, 2023.
But Hainan Province, a large island off the south coast of China, is only one of 23 Chinese provinces and 34 total administrative units, ranking 28th among them in human population.
Research and development of bio-transformed bear bile powder products appears to continue, with the incentive that it would be much less expensively and controversially produced, marketed, and exported to foreign markets.
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