Jilin Province Tianzheng Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd.

Jilin Province Tianzheng, registered as Jilin Tianzheng Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (吉林添正生物科技股份有限公司), was established in 2008 in Jiaohe, a county-level city under Jilin City in Jilin Province. It makes gelatin from animal bone.

Cattle bone is the raw material. After incoming inspection, bone particles go through roughly two months of pretreatment by acid steeping, liming and neutralisation to decalcify and soften them, then through low temperature extraction, cotton cake filtration and more than ten further steps within 24 hours to yield yellow to pale yellow gelatin granules. Total elapsed time from bone charging to semi-finished gelatin is 52 to 67 days, after which batches are blended to customer specification. The company notes that bone gelatin gives better capsule shell stability than skin gelatin, which is why it favours the pharmaceutical excipient market.

Current capacity is 10,000 tonnes a year of bone gelatin, 3,000 tonnes of bone collagen peptide and 35,000 tonnes of dicalcium phosphate recovered from the bone, with raw material self-sufficiency above 80 percent. Annual sales run to 3,000 to 4,000 tonnes. Output goes mainly to Shandong and Zhejiang, with exports to Thailand, Vietnam and India. The company has extended into bovine bone collagen peptide made by enzymatic hydrolysis, and works with universities on medical aesthetic products and foods for special medical purposes.