Drepanoalpha: An Overview On The Quality Control Process And Standardization Feature Of An Antisickling Herbal Drug From Democratic Republic Of The Congo

Abstract

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an autosomal recessive type of hemoglobin disorder. Nowadays, the main challenge is how to improve the clinical aspects of life quality of the patients with low toxicity and safer therapy from indigenous knowledge. Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the biodiversity rich countries in the world and can play the lead role in production and commercialization of standardized antisickling formulations like Drepanoalpha® worldwide. In this research paper, various methods of phytochemical standardization, such as TLC, HPTLC, HPLC, UV-Vis, IR, MS and their hyphenated techniques for profiling and quantification of markers compounds like phenolics (anthocyanins, flavonoids), phenolic and/or triterpenoic acids in Drepanoalpha®, a polyherbal medicine produced through a bio-guided based plant selection after eight years of intensive advanced laboratory research, are proposed for quality control and standardization feature.