How is bile acid made? Tracing the raw materials, what makes Lachance Bile Acid unique?
Not every type of bile acid can be called Lachance Bile Acid. With 19 years of focus on research and production, what makes Lachance Bile Acid so special? Chief Engineer Ma from Lachance Animal Health R&D Center, who comes from a family of bile acid specialists, was influenced by his father to get involved in bile acid production. From boiling bile paste to the current production process, the extraction techniques have become more refined. Below is Engineer Ma’s interpretation of Lachance Bile Acid, based on tracing raw materials, the production process, and the brand's development.
Bile acid first appeared in the 1980s, generally extracted from pig bile. However, due to the scarcity of resources and low productivity at that time, the supply of pig bile was quite limited. The process was also very simple—heating the bile, filtering, boiling it into paste, and finally crushing it. This was the earliest form of Chinese medicine made from pig bile. After the opening-up policy, Tianmin Zhang changed the landscape of bile acid extraction. He led the industry from simple processing techniques to biochemical pharmaceutical methods, developing and improving the process in 1985. He introduced a method where bilirubin is extracted first, followed by bile paste extraction. At that time, a humorous saying circulated in the bile acid industry: "One big pot feeds the world, jars and bottles travel the world." Though a joke, it reflected that the production techniques existed but conditions were still quite harsh. With the continuous advancement of technology, another method matured in 2005, which involved extracting pig and goose deoxycholic acid from crude bile paste. This method was relatively cost-effective, provided high returns, and resulted in stable products, becoming the main production line for bile acid extraction. This is the development history of bile acid production techniques.
Lachance Animal Health focuses on bile acid production and research. From the early methods of extraction substitution, the five-step chemical process, column purification method, and biological enzymatic hydrolysis, to the current natural extraction method, this process preserves the natural components of the bile while removing harmful substances. Moreover, through professional testing and a series of reactions, impurities in crude bile acid have been removed. The test report shows that none of the 18 amino acids were detected, leaving only pure bile acid components. There is no issue of product homogeneity or animal origin.
With the continuous development of Lachance, having sufficient raw materials and high-quality products is essential for the next phase of growth. In response to this, we have expanded the sources of bile acid raw materials from pig bile to include duck and chicken bile. This not only increases the diversity of our products but also enhances the stability of raw material supply. At the same time, to ensure the stability and safety of bile acid products, Lachance Animal Health will build a new bile acid production workshop and establish three bile acid production lines. Once completed, this will enable precise traceability, where every step from raw material input, product production, premixing, packaging, and external sales can be traced. In the second phase, we will construct a production line for processing bile. Once the entire bile acid workshop is fully operational, we will no longer be affected by fluctuations in market supply and prices for raw materials. Product output will be stable, the sources traceable, and the quality will be safer and more reliable.
