Cepharanthine (CEP) is a naturally occurring alkaloid extracted from the plant Stephania cepharantha Hayata. It has been widely used in Japan for more than 40 years to treat a wide variety of acute and chronic diseases. CEP inhibits tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α-mediated NFκB stimulation, plasma membrane lipid peroxidation and platelet aggregation and suppresses cytokine production. It has also been shown to scavenge free radicals and to have a protective effect against some of the responses mediated by pro-inflammatory cytokines such as TNF-α, interleukin (IL)-1β and IL6. CEP has successfully been used to treat a diverse range of medical conditions, including radiation-induced leukopenia, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, alopecia areata, alopecia pityrodes, venomous snakebites, xerostomia, sarcoidosis, refractory anemia and various cancer-related conditions. No safety issues have been observed with CEP, and side effects are very rarely reported. Recently was described a transcriptomic approach confirmed that cepharanthine might have a potential innovative antiplasmodial mechanism of action. Cepharanthine could interfere with several important functions for Plasmodium survival and virulence as the mitochondrion, apicoplast, cytoadherence antigenic variation and Maurer’s clefts. Thus, cepharanthine might play an ongoing role in the progress on anti-malarial drug discovery efforts. Also using intravenous and oral administration of CEP was shown its protective effect for acute or late toxicity to the bladder/urethra and rectum. It was discovered, that acute urinary toxicity was significantly milder for the intravenous group than for the oral and non-administration groups. The protective efficacy of CEP was not approved for acute rectal toxicity, but late rectal toxicity was significantly milder for the intravenous group than for the oral group. Intravenous Cepharanthin administration may prevent acute or late toxicity by radiotherapy for prostate cancer.