Bear Bile
© Pharmalot
A highly controversial initial public offering by a Chinese drugmaker, which uses bile from captive black bears to make medicines for treating the liver and eye, has been scrapped after more than two years of sustained protests from animal-rights activists, according to The South China Morning Post.

The Fujian Guizhentang Pharmaceutical stock sale was one of nearly 270 that were pulled amid increased scrutiny of IPOs by the China Securities Regulatory Commission. But an explanation was not offered and local media were reporting the drugmaker plans to fund expansion through other means.

"This is a victory for animal welfare activists but already the media are reporting that Guizhentang will enlarge the scale of its business and may return to the idea of flotation at an opportune time in the future," says Toby Zhang of AnimalsAsia, an activist group, in a statement.

As we noted last year, the drugmaker has nearly 500 captive bears on its farm and planned to use the proceeds to increase that number to about 1,200 (back story). Although its safety and effectiveness has been questioned, bear bile is used in traditional medicine in Asia to clean livers and improving vision. Three decades ago, captive breeding replaced the original method of killing wild black bears to obtain their bile.

The number of bear farms in China has dropped in recent years to fewer than 100, but production is rising as remaining farms breed more bears and, according to Animals Asia, also capture them illegally. Last year, more than 10,000 bears were farmed for bile, which can cost up to $295 per pound, according to the Associated Press, citing data from the China Association of Traditional Chinese Medicines.

Black bears are reportedly listed among species with the highest risk of extinction by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. This helps explain why the planned stock sale by Fujian Guizhentang sparked outrage on the Internet and drew international attention. But activists say their fight is not over.

"We still have a long way to go and are taking this opportunity to spell out how we can put in place the first steps to ending bear bile farming once and for all," Zhang says. "Guizhentang and the large-scale industrial bear bile farmers have expanded the size of the industry. Through breeding, the number of bears on farms has increased rapidly and with little transparency. The longer this goes on the harder it becomes to stop."