On 29 January 2015, Artesunate for injection, the medicinal product for severe malaria treatment from Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (Group) Co., Ltd.* (“FosunPharma” or the “Company”, Stock Code: 600196-SH,02196-HK) was included in the Honours List 2014 of the Prescrire, an independent French medical journal, becoming the first Chinese innovative drug in on the list.

Prescrire is a medical journal run by the Association Mieux Prescrie, a non-profit organization, independent from the pharmaceutical industry. The magazine has French and English (International) versions. The annual Prescrire Awards comprise three categories, namely “PILULE D'OR / GOLDEN PILL AWARD”, “HONOURS LIST” and “NOTEWORTHY”.

In particular, PILULE D'OR / GOLDEN PILL AWARD is the top prize granted by the journal to drugs that provide a major therapeutic advance for patients and healthcare professionals in a field of in which no treatment was previously available, especially in rare disease. The HONOURS LIST includes the medicines of a clear advantage compared with the existing therapeutic options in their respective areas. The NOTEWORTHY is awarded to drugs which provide a modest improvement in patient care..

The Prescrire Annual Drug Awards are famous for its absolute independentt and stringent criteria in the healthcare industry. Its selections are highly recognized by healthcare professionals and honored as the Oscar of pharmaceutical industry.

The awards were selected under the principle of “fewer but better”. During the 33 years since the first Prescrire Drug Awards in 1981, only 11 years’ PILULE D'OR / GOLDEN PILL AWARD were granted, while the remaining 22 years’ highest award were leaving vacancy. In the past 6 years, no drug was granted such an honor. On the award list previously, all the winners were well-known distinguished progressives in the treatment of rare diseases, including the famous ivermectin for treatment of river blindness, hepatitis B vaccine, zidovudine for treatment of HIV, and acyclovir for antiviral; and the " HONOURS LIST " was occupied by various Blockbuster drugs such as Viagra, Glivec, omeprazole, etc.

The comments addressed by Prescrire to Artesuante for injection as below. Severe malaria is rare in France, but a leading cause of death worldwide. Intravenous artesunate has become the standard treatment for severe malaria. It is available in France through a temporary authorisation programme involving collection of data on the treated population.

FosunPharma stated that Artesunate for injection was the first drug winning such an honor and added to the Prescrire HONOURS LIST from Asia, which encouraged us to put more efforts in research and development of innovative drugs.

It was reported that Artesunate for injection (marketed under the brand name “Malacef” in France) was launched in France via the program “name a patient” since 2013 to treat patients with severe malaria who was infected in malaria-affected areas and attacked in France. Several hundreds of local patients were successfully cured by the drug since then, which deserved high praise from the French healthcare professionals. In 2014, Artesunate for injection was officially adopted as the first line treatment of severe malaria in France.

Artesunate for injection, a drug manufactured by Guilin Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. for treatment of severe malaria, was pre-qualified by the World Health Organization in 2010 and recommended globally as the first line treatment of severe malaria in "Guidelines for the treatment of malaria" (second edition) by  the World Health Organization in 2011. A multi-center large-scale clinical study in Africa indicated that the drug can decrease the mortality of severe malaria patients by 22.5% compared with the traditional drug quinine. If the drug were widely used to treatment severe malaria in Africa, Artesunate for injection might save 100,000 lives more per year..

Guilin Pharmaceutical is a subsidiary of FosunPharma. The company has supplied 23.8 million Artesunate for injection to the world since 2010 and estimated to have saved over 80,000 lives more compared with the drugs of the previous generation. More than 3.4 million people (over 90% in Africa) gained benefit from the drug.