In recent years, with the aging of the global population and the general improvement of consumer awareness, disease prevention and early intervention have been paid more and more attention, and the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) industry, which has the unique advantage of "preventive treatment of disease", has ushered in a huge development opportunity. Especially under the special background of the global COVID-19 pandemic, TCM has played an important role and provided a good opportunity for its industrial development. With the promulgation of a series of policies in China, the inheritance and innovative development of TCM have been accelerated. In this paper, we investigated the TCM's domestic and foreign market, research and development investment of enterprises, approval trend of innovative drugs, and internationalization and the layout of patents in the past 20 years, analyzed the current situation of TCM innovation and development, and looked forward to the future trend, with a view to provide inspiration for the future inheritance and innovation of TCM.