Is there an industrial future for phytopharmaceutical drugs? An outline of UNIDO programmes in the Sector

Abstract

Although a substantial proportion of the health-care expenditure of developing countries is spent on the acquisition of drugs, this is only sufficient to serve about a quarter of their population. Therefore it is inconceivable that WHO's goal of HEALTH FOR ALL by the year 2000 could even be approached without consideration being given to the role in health care systems of herbal medicines. In this endeavour, traditional herbal medicines must perforce be granted the benefits of modern science and technology to serve future global needs. Here we are addressing both a contigency situation as well as a long term one. In developing nations there is a dire need for an improved supply of therapeutic agents for a variety of diseases that are characteristic of deprivation and poverty. In addition herbal medicines promise to provide both concepts of therapy, as well as therapeutic agents in areas where modern medicine has few answers. UNIDO's programmes for technical assistance to developing nations aim at the fullest utilisation of traditional herbal-based pharmacopoeias in addressing both these situations. They have employed a multi-disciplinary approach to the industrial production of herbal medicines. The projects endeavour to utilise the natural flora, judiciously, for selection, domestication and cropwise cultivation of medicinal plant species for industrial processing. National R & D efforts have been strengthened to include the development of expertise in several areas such as instrumental analyses, biological assessment of raw materials as well as products. Process technology development has received special attention. A versatile poly-functional pilot plant has been developed to enable the production of herbal preparations as well as extracts and phytochemicals. It is possible to simulate the traditional process rationally yet preserve modern scientific parameters of process monitoring and good manufacturing practice. The production of phytopharmaceutical preparations on an industrial scale represents to many developing countries an important avenue of sustaining their programmes of health-care so vital to social and economic growth. This aspect as well as the prospect of novel drugs for modern medicine cry out for the global effort towards the traditional pharmacopoeias which is still awaited.