Production lines in Guangdong province's largest pharmaceutical enterprise have been transformed to produce ibuprofen. Daily production can reach three million pills.

XU CHUNJIANG, Deputy Head, Baiyunshan Pharmaceutical General Factory "Behind the glass window is our production area with the highest clean standard. The production of ibuprofen requires multiple procedures, and here is the last step – packaging. We work for 24 hours to shorten the lead time from one week to three days."

That comes as many Chinese cities are facing a shortage of medicine.

HE WEIWEI Guangzhou "After packaging, the medicine will be sent to hospitals, specifically fever clinics, as part of a government project to guarantee a stable medical supply."

The key difficulty is raw materials. With the help of the local government, the factory now managed to obtain 16 tons of raw materials, which can be made into 160 million pills of ibuprofen, enough for 25 million people as a round of fever treatment.

WANG JIANSONG Head, Baiyunshan Pharmaceutical General Factory "After raw materials arrived, we successfully conducted trial production within one day using a technique approved by drug regulators. So we resumed production immediately."

Under a government supply project, two buyer companies in Guangzhou city are designated to purchase and distribute medicine.

ZHOU WEIHE Deputy GM of China Meheco Guangdong Pharma Co., Ltd. "We need to find multiple supplier sources and guarantee stocks of medicine for the next three months. We have new requests every day."

Guangdong province listed more than 100 kinds of medicine as key drugs for COVID patients. The factory's mother enterprise produces 57 kinds of them. All the production lines are in full operation now.

HWW, CGTN, Guangzhou.