The pharmacognosy and the research and development of herbal medicine: seeking the necessary approach

Abstract

Pharmacognosy is an applied pharmaceutical science; it uses several, basic, supporting sciences, such as botany, chemistry and pharmacology, aggregates knowledge from other pharmaceutical areas, such as pharmacotechnic and pharmaceutical technology, but has its focus on specific applications.By saying that, my intention is to express that the essence of our field has an unquestionable relation with product development, much more than just with research, as great as it is the merit in this activity. By virtue of the history of the post-grad courses, the professionals in our field are much more chemists and pharmacologists (botanists almost inexistent) than actually pharmacognosists, condition that by itself should not be a problem, if professionally we were to understand our social role.In this scenery and understanding, I was invited to write this editorial about the importance of herbal medicines in our country and, on my behalf, the relationship of Pharmacognosy with these. In that sense, we can say that, unfortunately, we still have very little genuine national products, conceived, researched and developed with our competence and labor. On the other hand, researches we have plenty, thousands even, but that are published out of context and without purpose, with potential to be applied but with no follow up. Maybe we lack the objectivity of the Americans and Japanese, as well as the systematic European way to work, we talk and discuss a lot, but we develop and undertake very little. Thus the international research and development prevail, which constantly enter our consumer market with overwhelming force, because of their great quality. The most recent examples are seen in the drugstores, products based on Boswellia serrata, Hedera helix, Pelargonium sidoides, Petasistes hybridus, Rhodiola rosea, to name a few recent releases, all of from European research.In parallel, the national pharmaceutical industries also show a low productivity in this area, made worse by the lack of resources and funding, familiar management with no boldness, the governmental paternalism tradition, among many other problems, and have been losing new products and market, some already part of history as it happened to Flora Medicinal laboratory. We, pharmacognosists, should return our focus and our competence to old phytotherapic products still existing in the markets, formulated with species still almost unknown today, like carapiá, quinamineira, mandacaru, amongst others, and add to them the new knowledge necessary to maintain it, and even insert new therapeutic horizons, in the market.