Made in Hong Kong: the story of Po Chai Pills, ‘cure all’ medicine Chinese families have relied on for over 60 years
The tiny pills that reputedly remedy everything from stomach pains to menstrual cramps have long been a staple of local medicine cabinets. Now the company is looking to attract younger consumers to keep the legacy going
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 03 October, 2017, 6:16pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 03 October, 2017, 8:06pm
Christopher DeWolf



When Derek Sum Kwong-yip was a child, his family always had Po Chai Pills on hand. “Every time I complained about tummy pain, my mother would hand me a bottle,” he says.

Curing more than just stomach pains, the pills were reputed to relieve menstrual cramps and even cold symptoms, living up to the meaning of their name: “cure-all pills”.
Little did Sum know that, decades later, he would end up owning the company that makes the venerable Chinese medicine.

Sum is a pharmacist, trained in the Welsh city of Cardiff, and also the CEO of Jacobson Pharma, a company that makes dozens of generic drugs for Hong Kong hospitals. In 2010, Jacobson bought Li Chung Shing Tong, the manufacturer of Po Chai Pills and other herbal remedies.


Derek Sum, chairman and CEO of Jacobson Pharma. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Even if you have never popped a bottle of the tiny, buckshot-shaped herbal pills, you have almost certainly seen their colourful vintage packages on chemists’ shelves. The pills were developed in 1896 by entrepreneur Li Shiu-kei in the city of Foshan in Guangdong province and were manufactured there until 1949, when the Li family fled to Hong Kong following the communist revolution.

The Foshan factory was subsequently nationalised, so the family opened a new facility in North Point. By then, Po Chai Pills were already a household name in Hong Kong – and their popularity only grew with a series of animated television commercials in the 1970s and ’80s.



By the time Jacobson acquired Po Chai Pills from the Li family, a survey showed that 97 per cent of consumers in Hong Kong were familiar with the brand, along with 96 per cent of consumers in Singapore and 89 per cent in Macau.
“It has become a household name that passes from one generation to the next,” Sum says. “It comes with a high level of trust and confidence among end users. There is a lot of value in this brand waiting to be unlocked.”


Workers packing Po Chai Pills at the company’s old factory in North Point. Photo: Po Chai Pills

Despite their enviable position in the market, Po Chai Pills have had their ups and downs. In 2010, internal company tests revealed some pills were contaminated with chemicals that can raise blood pressure and cause cancer. The products were recalled, but Li Chung Shing Tong failed to tell the Department of Health, which led to sales of the pills being temporarily banned.
The episode made it clear that the company needed to be more stringent. “We have upgraded the standard of manufacturing as well as the stringency of quality control,” Sum says. “We needed to put in quite a lot of resources to make it happen.”
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