The People 's Medical Publishing House (PMPH) is directly under the auspices of the national professional medical publishing house; it was established on June 1, 1953. It is an wide-ranging and prolific medical publisher with products in both modern and traditional medical fields. PMPH received the “National Book Award” prize, and “National Prize for Scientific and Technological Progress” for its 430 types of books, DVDs, and periodicals; it is foremost in the publishing field. In 1993, it was appraised as among the first outstanding publishing house by the Chinese Propaganda Ministry and Information Bureau. Since having been established, PMPH has published more than 20,000 books, in total printing around 700 million volumes. Each year, it publishes more than 1000 types of books, and over 1 million volumes each year, an output value of 670 million RMB per year.

PMPH's ultimate goal is “to allow Chinese doctors to have the best medical texts & teaching materials in the world” and “to provide the Chinese people with the best popular health reading materials”. After 53 years of hard work, the management and staff have always kept the “People's Medical Publishing House” at the first rank of the market competition.

Since the launch of international cooperative efforts in copyright and publishing in the 1980's, the People's Medical Publishing House has made strides to enter the international medical book market. PMPH has established long-term cooperative relationships with many publishing companies in the countries of the United States, Britain, Japan, Germany, France, Switzerland, Singapore as well as with companies in Taiwan and Hong Kong. On Oct 17, 1992, PMPH was confirmed as a translation & publication center of The World Health Organization (WHO).

On April 27, 1987, the Health Ministry established an office for medical teaching-materials inside PMPH. With the goal of strengthening the higher medical teaching materials of the nation and adapting to the educational needs of the 21st century, the medical textbook and instructional materials review board was established in April 2000, composed of many academicians and experts. With the full collaboration of the government ministries, research organizations and academic specialists, PMPH has compiled and published over 1500 types of textbooks for several branches of education: college, adult education, training materials, examination materials, foreign language textbooks and cooperative education materials; and at different stages: master's degree, undergraduate, vocational education, junior & senior high school, and etc.

In January, 2005, Hu Guochen became the new president and editor-in-chief of PMPH. Under his leadership, PMPH has established the basic understanding that “only by promoting professional development, can professional publications develop”, which considers medical personnel training and health policy promotion to be primary. PMPH, although established domestically maintains an eye on the international standards, and has been implementing reforms quickly, constructing a modern system of enterprise, adjusting its product framework, seeking cooperation in every aspect, expanding its competitive advantage, and realizing its overall coordination of a sustainable development of book publication.

PMPH uses the strategy of “equal import & export” to develop its multiple aspects. It depends on first-class authors, first-class quality and first-class service to create a variety of levels and media types (books, periodicals and DVDs). Because PMPH holds fast to the principle of social benefit, it originated and implemented a project to evaluate teaching materials directed towards poorer citizens. At the first evaluation conference of outstanding national medical college textbooks in 2005, PMPH all told spent nearly 8 million RMB to reward 189 chief editors and 67 editing units of 179 acclaimed teaching materials. In the aspect of international cooperation, PMPH has negotiated with over 30 world-renowned publishing companies, and signed many copyright agreements, to commence the “import” of 1000 titles of foreign language books, and entered the implementation of the “export” of 1000 titles of foreign language translations (primarily English) of Chinese medicine works.

In 2005, PMPH altogether published 1,657 book titles, an increase of 9.23%, including 634 teaching material titles, which is an increase of 6.20%; and 1,023 reference book titles, an increase of 11.20%. A total of 387 million characters were printed, in 20.92 million volumes; the total production value approached 75 million RMB, an increase of 0.63%. The 2005 sales worth was nearly 7 million RMB, the year's market returns surpass 70%, returned goods rate is less than 6%, and taxes paid on profits were 141.3 million RMB for the year, showing an annual growth rate of 10.02%

The eleventh “Five Year Plan” is a crucial phase for PMPH's development, as it seeks to change from a large domestic medical specialization publishing company to become a strong international medical specialization publishing company. PMPH’s own eleventh “Five Year Plan” Development Plan explicitly proposes these goals:

• To continue to maintain the central importance of teaching material in the market competition
• To enhance the influence of academic works
• To expand market coverage of popular science books and periodicals
• To display the superiority of electronic audio and video products and internet publications
• To simultaneously publish academic monograph, popular science books, newspapers and periodicals, electronic audio & video products, internet publications
• To exert the ascendancy of electronic audio and video products and internet publications

PMPH has a project to import 1000 foreign language titles and 100 periodical titles, and to export 1000 English medical titles. Also, PMPH hopes to join the level of “first-class” international publishers.

To approach the goal of “exporting & spreading outwards”, PMPH has established a 100-member team of foreign and Chinese translators and editors as its strategy of preparing many titles for publication, including mass-market Chinese medicine titles, Chinese medicine textbooks, clinical practice of Chinese medicine, integration of Chinese medicine and Biomedicine, the clinical experiences of famous Chinese doctors, acupuncture, Tui Na, Chinese herbal books, and ancient books.

PMPH is constructing a showplace of world medical books. Designed according to a 1:5 dimension ratio this building's total structural area will approach 70,000 square meters. The completed building will include 10,000 square meters of offices, 36,000 square meters of the Longtan Hotel, and 15,000 square meters of an international exhibition center. Located on the southeast Second Ring Road, it will combine business offices, conference spaces, book display and retail spaces, an academic exchange center, lodging, a restaurant and a sports center. It will be the visible symbol of our company's transformation from a strong domestic publishing company to a leading international publishing company.　

PMPH “imports” famous international medical works and has famous doctors in China participate in translating & editing the Chinese editions, so that the process of cooperation with foreign experts will raise the skill levels of our country's top experts to match international levels. At the same time, PMPH also “imports” experts and cooperates with many Chinese universities to bring PMPH to the forefront of education and medical skills exchange. PMPH will be contracting with 50-100 master's degree holders in clinical Chinese medicine or research to work with PMPH for 1-2 years each. The goal of their project is to release a series of high level titles of clinically useful books and also reveal famous doctors of China to the general international public,

PMPH is established on principles of modern management, and practices human resources reforms to augment the creation and enthusiasm of our employees. As it develops, PMPH works to improve and advance the level of life and welfare treatment of all its employees.