China is a large chemical active pharmaceutical ingredient (APIs) and pharmaceutical preparations production country. As one of the branches of medical industry, the manufacturing of steroid hormone APIs is traditional and there is a large market capacity at home and abroad. There is a good market prospect. In aspect of anti-inflammatory, the effect of steroid hormone is only next to antibiotic. With the manufacturing of APIs moving to developing countries, the market capacity of steroid hormone APIs expands further.

Because of unique resource advantages, China is a large steroid hormone production country. Yam, once distributed all over the country, was cultivated widely and developed into an agricultural industry under the support of government. As a result, China got unique advantages to manufacture steroid hormone and occupied most of market of raw materials. Extract diosgenin from Yam to product steroid hormones is a traditional method in China. 

Traditional production process for steroid hormone is extracting diosgenin from Yam and performing further synthesis. However, the wild Yam resource has been exhausted since reckless exploitation. The costs for cultivating Yam increases significantly due to sharp rise in labour costs. Moreover, the Chinese government strengthens environmental protection control, the price of diosgenin rises from CNY 14,000/ton in 2005 to 45,000 ~50,000 /ton today.

Diosgenin is the basic material for production of steroid hormone, their rise in price will directly affect the subsequent production cost and cause obvious increase of price of steroid and hormone. Consequently, the steroid hormone industry in china will be influenced greatly since gradual losing of price competitive advantage in the international market. 

Looking for alternative resources of Yam has become the urgent matter. 

Then we cooperate with experts in  steroid hormone field overseas, introduce strain of Mycobacterium and advanced fermentation technologies from abroad. We are the leading company to produce 4-AD and ADD by employing widespread phytosterol in domestic with fermentation method. 4-AD and ADD can be used to synthesize androgen, estrogen, progesterone, corticosteroid, and variety of steroid hormones. 
Phytosterol is extracted from residues of oil industry. Its source is simple and there is obvious resource advantage. At present, China has formed a large extraction industry for phytosterol which can provide thousands ton of phytosterol every year. All of these provide a reliable guarantee for development of steroid hormones. 

In addition, the price of phytosterol is stable which always maintains at the level of CNY 70,000 ~100,000/ton since 2005. This afford a cost guarantee for continuous and steady development of steroid hormone.