Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (CDUTCM) was established in 1956 and is one of the four earliest higher education institutions for traditional Chinese medicine in China. The university was originally named Chengdu College of Traditional Chinese Medicine and was renamed Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in 1995. After more than 60 years of construction and development, it has become a high-level university with a distinct feature of traditional Chinese medicine as the main discipline and complementary development of other health-related disciplines. It is a jointly constructed university by the Sichuan Provincial People's Government, the Ministry of Education, and the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine. CDUTCM was also selected as a "Double First-Class" university by the Chinese government in 2017 and 2023. In the 2022 Best Chinese University Rankings by the China Soft Science Research Institute, CDUTCM ranks 25th in the field of medicine and is ranked first in Sichuan Province. 

CDUTCM covers an area of approximately 1,800 acres and currently has 19 colleges, 40 undergraduate majors, and over 26,000 full-time students, including more than 4,800 postgraduates. The university is one of the first institutions authorized to grant doctoral and master's degrees in traditional Chinese medicine and is also a pioneer in clinical medicine (master's and doctoral) professional degree programs. CDUTCM has 3 doctoral programs and 29 master's programs authorized to confer first-level disciplines, as well as 8 master's programs and 63 master's programs authorized to confer second-level disciplines. In addition, there are 3 postdoctoral research stations.   In the past five years, CDUTCM has added 3,456 scientific research projects, including 306 national-level projects such as the National Key Research and Development Program, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the National Social Science Foundation. The university has won a total of 87 awards for scientific and technological achievements at all levels, including 6 first prizes and 12 second prizes for the Provincial Science and Technology Awards, as well as 1 Outstanding Contribution Award for Science and Technology, 1 Outstanding Young Science and Technology Innovation Award, 1 International Science and Technology Cooperation Award, and others.

CDUTCM has 81 laboratories at all levels, including the State Key Laboratory of Southwest Specialty Chinese Medicine Resources jointly established by the Ministry of Education and the Province, the National Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center, the National Traditional Chinese Medicine Virtual Simulation Experimental Teaching Center, the National-Local Joint Engineering Research Center for Processing of Chinese Herbal Medicine, the National Chinese Medicine Germplasm Resource Bank (Sichuan), the Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education, the Engineering Research Center of the Ministry of Education, the Key Research Laboratory of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, TCM Research Laboratory (Tier Three) of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, the 2011 Collaborative Innovation Center of Sichuan Province, and the Key Laboratory of the Sichuan Provincial Federation of Social Sciences, etc.

The affiliated hospital of the school (Sichuan Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine) is a national center for inheriting and innovating traditional Chinese medicine and a clinical research center, It is also a provincial clinical medical research center for traditional Chinese medicine endocrine and metabolic diseases, a clinical medical research center for traditional Chinese medicine cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, and a center for evidence-based medicine of traditional Chinese medicine. The university currently has 4 directly affiliated hospitals, 8 non-directly affiliated hospitals, 4 directly affiliated hospitals, and 103 member units of the medical consortium.

The university has established the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle alliance for the development of traditional Chinese medicine, the Western China University Alliance for Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the Sichuan Traditional Chinese Medicine Health Industry Technology Innovation Alliance. It has also established the first board of directors of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, established strategic cooperation relations with more than 50 regional governments, and established industry-academia-research-application cooperate relations with more than 100 enterprises, public institutions, and academic organizations. It is a pilot unit for the "assignment of ownership or long-term use rights of scientific and technological achievements to researchers" and a "national intellectual property rights pilot construction university."