INNOVATIONS
TRILEX® Liangcha: A Knowledge-Based “Herbal Tea Preparation”
Innovations & Impacts
In recent years, the HKSAR government has accentuated the signficance of Chinese medicine in the development of medical services in Hong Kong. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, CUHK has reintroduced the TRILEX® Herbal Tea (an herbal tea product invented by the late Honorary Professor HU Shiu-ying of the School of Life Sciences) with Healthworks to the Hong Kong market. The product was relaunched in good time to help people manage COVID-19 symptoms.
TRILEX® Herbal Tea is the first scientifically proven “liangcha” (Chinese herbal tea) that effectively relieves symptoms of respiratory infections, such as influenza. The formulation is based on traditional Chinese medicine, where holly leaves were traditionally used to brew herbal teas and medicine to treat respiratory infection symptoms in southern China. Developed by our researchers from the Faculty of Science in the late 1990s—before the School of Chinese Medicine (SCM) was established at CUHK—the research was funded by the Industry Department (now known as the Trade and Industry Department). Additionally, the herbal tea was scientifically verified with the strictest efficacies and safety. The legacy left by Professor HU and her research team bespeaks CUHK’s innovations and inventions as well as their transcendence of time. The knowledge-based herbal tea also marks a vital step towards the scientificization of Chinese medicine.
From Research to Market
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RESEARCH
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IP & LICENSING
As a world-renowned botanist, Professor HU researched extensively on the holly family. She played a significant part in the development of research and teaching facilities on traditional Chinese medicine at CUHK. She was also a strong advocate for the Chinese Medicinal Material Research Centre in the 1970s, and was instrumental in the establishment of the School of Chinese Medicine. Having devoted a lifetime’s career to research on plant taxonomy, Professor HU had over 160 academic treatises and 185,000 specimens to her credit and earned herself the accolade of being a walking herbarium.
Professor HU instigated the research project on trilex with the School of Chinese Medicine. The project has reached its fruition stage with an herbal tea product being produced and marketed, to the benefit of the community. For over a decade, Healthworks manufactured this ground-breaking product in the form of tea bags and sachets and benefited many Chinese communities. In 2015, sales were suspended due to the optimization of proprietary Chinese Medicine (pCm) registration under the Chinese Medicine Ordinance in Hong Kong. As the government refined the registration system over the years, CUHK brought TRILEX® Herbal Tea back thanks to the collective effort of the Institute of Integrative Medicine, SCM and Healthworks. In February 2022, a license on the herbal formula and the TRILEX® trademark were granted to Healthworks. TRILEX® Herbal Tea is also the first “Herbal Tea Preparation” to gain a pCm registration in Hong Kong.