Soon the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) will come out with quality standards for about 100 medicinal plants commonly used by the Indian Systems of Medicine manufacturers, as part of its efforts to help ISM drugs gain international acceptance. At present, India lacks a comprehensive and updated herbal pharmacopoeia and the move is aimed at in this direction.
Sources said that concerted research works were progressing in about four to five reputed research institutions as part of an ICMR funded initiative and the second volume of the ‘Quality Standards of Indian Medicinal Plants’ was released recently. The third part of the volume will come out within a month and another volume will come out before the end of this year. Each of the volume will have monographs and quality parameters related to about 30 to 32 commonly used herbs of Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani medicine. The first volume, released in 2003, had standards for about 32 herbs.
Mainly, the National Botanical Research Institute, Pune, National Institute of Pharmacy Education and Research (NIPER), PERD Centre at Ahmedabad, Tropical & Botanical Garden & Research Institute (TBGRI), Thiruvananthapuram etc. are doing the standardization works. ICMR offers funds to the tune of about Rs 25 lakhs each to the institutions to develop about 10 to 12 monographs in a year with the aim of developing standards for about 200 herbs, said sources.
Sources point out though the traditional medicine systems of India have a long history of use they lacked adequate scientific documentation, particularly in the light of modern scientific knowledge. Evidence-based approach to traditional medicine requires establishing quality parameters for medicinal plants used in the system. The first and foremost activity in this direction is the preparation of monographs of medicinal plants that would provide a systematic and updated account on correct identification of the medicinal plant species along with the detailed descriptions of their pharmacognostic and phytochemical profiles.
In the first volume, monographs were published for Abutilon indicum (linn.) sweet, Alpinia galanga (linn.) willd, Arnebia euchroma (royle) Johnston var. euchroma, Artemisia annua linn, Asparagus racemosus willd Bergenia ciliata (haw), sternb. forma ligulata yeo, Butea monosperma (lamk.) taub, Cassia occidentalis linn, Cassia senna linn. var. senna, Cinchona officinalis linn.f, Cinnamomum verum J.S. Presl, Curcuma amada Roxb, Cyperus rotundus linn, Elettaria cardamomum (linn.) maton, Gymnema sylvestre (retz.) schult, Holarrhena antidysenterica (roth) DC, Jatropha glandulifera Roxb, Lawsonia inermis linn., Moringa oleifera lamk.,Mucuna pruriens (linn.),. Murraya koenigii (linn.) spreng, Myristica fragrans Houtt, Nigella sativa linn, Piper longum linn, Pueraria tuberosa (roxb. ex willd.) , Sida acuta Burm. f. ssp. acuta. , Tephrosia purpurea (linn.) pers, Terminalia bellirica (Gaertn.) roxb., Terminalia chebula (Gaertn.) Retz., Tinospora cordifolia (willd.) miers ex Hook. f. & Thoms., Tylophora indica (Burm.f.) merrill., Wedelia chinensis (osbeck) merrill. Further details were given on evaluation of crude drugs, phytochemical evaluation of raw materials, methods for the isolation of markers, drying and storage of raw material, pesticides, residues and microbial contamination, botanical names, chemical constituents and other names of the plants etc.
Sources said the effort gained significance considering the recent controversy over high metal content prevalence in some Indian made Ayurvedic drugs as per a JAMA report. The issue caused ban of these drugs in US, Canada and EU countries.