On August 14th, the Hubei Provincial Academician and Expert Technology Service "515" Action Group for Chinese Medicinal Materials (Leech) visited Jingzhou Minkang Biotechnology Co., Ltd. to conduct an on-site inspection of its nationally leading industrialized integrated leech farming technology.
Inside Minkang Biotechnology’s modern farming facility, the expert team observed neatly arranged leech breeding ponds. The black pond units are equipped with artificial water quality maintenance technology, keeping the water crystal clear—a striking contrast to traditional outdoor mud-based ponds. "Traditional agriculture relies on natural conditions, while Minkang Biotechnology achieves year-round uninterrupted production through industrialized integrated technology," explained Gong Yuan, the company's responsible person.
It is reported that Minkang Biotechnology’s industrialized integrated leech farming technology significantly increases leech yield through precise environmental control, water quality monitoring, and circulating water treatment systems, eliminating production fluctuations caused by environmental factors. During the tour, experts frequently leaned down to take notes.
Leech saliva contains hirudin, the strongest natural antithrombin substance discovered to date, widely used in the production of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular medicines, thrombosis prevention, postoperative recovery, and cancer treatment. However, extracting hirudin is challenging: each leech yields only a limited amount, and the leech species must also be carefully selected. Therefore, achieving high hirudin output requires focused efforts on leech breeding and farming. Leeches also demand extremely high environmental conditions for growth. Traditional field-based farming faces significant environmental challenges, with frequent annual yield reductions being commonplace.
Minkang Biotechnology focuses on rearing medical-grade leeches (Hirudo nipponica), which are dedicated to medical research. Through integrated farming and strict control of water quality, temperature, and humidity, the company achieves high yields of medical leeches, thereby enabling high output of hirudin.
Currently, Minkang Biotechnology maintains the largest Hirudo nipponica population in China. It is the country’s only large-scale, standardized leech farming enterprise and possesses fully independent intellectual property rights in leech farming production technology. The company can cultivate leeches through their entire lifecycle in artificial environments, filling multiple technological gaps in the domestic Hirudo nipponica farming sector and making substantial contributions to China’s leech industry.
During the symposium, the expert team highly commended Minkang Biotechnology’s innovations in medical leech farming. They emphasized giving full play to the role of enterprises as innovation drivers, striving to enhance the quality and upgrading of the medical leech farming industry, and developing more high-quality, effective medicines to continuously improve public health and well-being. The experts also highlighted the importance of comprehensively empowering industrial development with artificial intelligence to increase the intelligence level of drug research and development, clinical trials, production, and distribution. Additionally, they stressed strengthening product R&D and promoting the revitalization of traditional Chinese medicine through innovation.
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