Quality Botanical Products – From Farm to Firm and Biological Implications of Seperated Natural Products

The extensive use of botanicals and the increasing global demand of phytomedicines need good practices at each stage from cultivation of medicinal plants, its collection, post harvest practices till marketing. Besides the above practices, the present paper deals with the recent techniques for the identification and authentication of botanicals, separation, isolation and characterization of homogenous compounds. Preclinical studies for the botanical extract as such, as well as its biologically active constituents are reported. Microbial quality analyses have been performed and are also described.

Regulatory aspects for the safety assessment of herbal medicines are described for various countries. Overall quality, safety and efficacy of botanicals are discussed in detail using an integrated and multidisciplinary approach to discover, develop and commercialize this new natural product.

The separated new natural products were subjected to acute toxicity test, evaluation of fibrinogen in plasma and evaluation of anti-hemorrhoid activity. The results advocate that the natural product did not cause any detrimental effect on acute administration. The compound treated animals were found to have slightly elevated fibrinogen in blood plasma as compared to control animals, these results can prove useful to prevent bleeding. Acknowledgements: Thanks are due to ZCHRTM & HAAD, for providing facilities. References: [1] Quality Control Methods for medicinal plant materials, WHO (2008). [2] Flavonoids – Advances in Research since 1986: Edited by J.B. Harborne, Chapman and Hall, London, New York, Tokyo, Melbourne (1994).