Abstract

Combination therapy with multi-drug regimen as an integrated intervention of several pharmacological compounds that interact with multiple targets, rather than monotherapy using a single compound that targets at a single molecule, is a common strategy for combating complex disease in both Western and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)1,2,3. But each is based on different mechanistic principles. In Western medicine, a multi-drug regimen usually combines several monotherapies targeting on different molecules to optimize pharmacodynamics and/or pharmacokinetics to improve therapeutic efficacy and/or reduce toxicity and adverse reactions1. In TCM, the main therapeutics is the unique TCM medicinal formula, so called Fangji, which is usually composed of multiple herbs and medical materials with integrated multiple therapeutic objects. One of the major principles of Fangji compositions is Zhenghou based “Jun-Chen-Zuo-Shi” to orchestrate and integrate the multiple therapeutic targets for a specific Zhenghou4.