Preparation of official reference standards from herbal medicines

The reference standards are very important and essential for quality control of herbal medicines. They are required for identification, assay and purity test etc. Unlike general chemical references, which are used for conventional pharmaceutical products, reference standards for herbal medicines are difficult to obtain or have relatively higher price. We have prepared botanical samples of herbal materials and marker substances for reference standards and intended to promote the quality control of herbal medicines. By botanical scientists, herbal materials are collected, identified its origin and then evaluated its quality and specification. Marker substances are prepared from medicinal plant materials through extraction, separation and purification. All materials are tested and characterized [1, 2]. We review and reevaluate the herbal materials and marker substances and then establish them as official reference standards. Particularly, several herbal materials and marker substances such as gardenia fruit and saikosaponin A etc., were reviewed and reevaluated, and we will describe the establishment process of these reference standards.

Acknowledgements: Chung-Ang University¹, WonKwang University, Wann Kyunn Whang¹, Youn Chul Kim.

References: 1. (2002), The Korean Pharmacopoeia 8th edition, KFDA 2. (2005), The Korean Herbal Pharmacopoeia, KFDA.