Promotion of traditional knowledge, especially the potentials of an ancient health science like Ayurveda, in today's techno-economic world is hard unless there is a serious effort to connect the same with modern scientific rationales. The recent herbal research initiative of the country's FMCG giant Hindustan Lever Limited is exactly an effective move in this line. HLL believes that there is huge opportunity to combine traditional country knowledge in herbals with appropriate technology to create differentiated products, says Dr D B Anantha Narayana, the new Head of Herbals Research, HLL, in an exclusive interview with C H Unnikrishnan of Pharmabiz.com
Dr. Narayana, a veteran scientist in Ayurveda and herbal science, had been Director of Dabur Research Foundation since 1991 and moved to HLL to head its Herbals Research Division in January 2003. Excerpts

What is the immediate project you have embarked on at the HLL's exploration desk?

As you know, HLL had conducted an exercise, called Project Millennium, in 1999 to identify newly emerging consumer goods categories, which the company could enter. Among them, the company first launched confectioneries, under the Max brand name in 2001. The next was the brand, Lever Ayush. With Lever Ayush ayurvedic health care products, HLL enters the Rs 2,000 crore herbal health care market, which is growing at a rate of 15 to 17 per cent and almost 50 per cent faster than similar non-herbal products.

The company decided to launch a new brand, Lever Ayush, because none of the existing brand propositions could encompass the complete range to be marketed under 'Lever Ayush'.

Lever Ayush ayurvedic products bring to the healthcare market, the company's 70-year heritage in India of deep consumer understanding and developing products which meet the everyday needs of people everywhere. For this new consumer healthcare area, the research and development is completely backed by the Hindustan Lever Research Centre (HLRC), which has laboratories in Mumbai and Bangalore.

HLRC is currently one of India's largest R&D centres in the private sector, which at present holds about 184 patents. Under HLRC, we would now form a core team dedicated to herbal research, which will provide innovative and thoroughly research based novel products to the Lever Ayush products basket.

Like FMCG and other consumer products, do you think HLL can leverage its marketing strength in case of healthcare products as well?

HLL has chosen its new ventures, like confectioneries or health care, on the basis that the absolute market size is large, that HLL's offering has the potential to become number one or two in the next five years, that the business will be profitable, and that it would draw on the company's core strengths. Apart from these, the company considers that its core strengths are deep consumer understanding, an established R&D base, brand building skills, mass distribution reach, low-cost supply chain and the ability to invest.

The Rs 2,000-crore herbal health care market, while being large, is highly fragmented. HLL believes that there is huge opportunity to combine traditional country knowledge in herbals, specifically Ayurveda, with appropriate technology to create differentiated products.

The company first identified and tied up with relevant ayurvedic knowledge sources, and secondly, developed technology to create, under Lever Ayush, superior products than that is available now. All the products have been rigorously tested by adopting test procedures adopted by the pharmaceutical industry, though this is not required by law.

Though Ayurveda is acclaimed to be a proven healthcare system in India for ages, why is it that the country has still not made it big in the export market? Will HLL be able to break these constraints by promoting Lever Ayush brands internationally?

Ayurveda is India's 4,500-year old medical system, written as a sub-text of the Atharva Veda. It is based on the interplay of Space, Air, Fire, Water and Earth. Ayurvedic treatment is a holistic and natural healing system that believes in treating the individual rather than the disease.

Based entirely on the premise that an individual is but a microcosm of the macrocosm - the Universe; it follows that a complete understanding of mind, body and spirit are in order but a study of the psychological, dietary, behavioural, lifestyle and environmental factors are equally important before any formal diagnosis of an individual's health can be offered.

Each person is an entity unto himself, his unique personality as well as his psychosomatic peculiarities (if any), are also taken into account, making the patient an equal partner in the healing process. The benefits of Ayurveda extend well beyond immediate cure. Besides getting to the root of the disease in order to cure it, Ayurveda ultimately aims in preventing a recurrence of the problem by helping the individual integrate the principles of ayurveda into his everyday lifestyle.

The fact that Ayurvedic medication has no unpleasant side effects on the body definitely helps in the final synthesis. As do the yoga and meditation, which is also, an essential part of the treatment.

However, the country and the other Ayurvedic healthcare stakeholders in the gone generation could not show the same to the outside world with clearly documented form to convince them about its potentials.
But the companies with a modern outlook and having serious research focus have understood the magnitude of such constraints and trying to promote the drug potentials of herbal in a systematic way both in the local and international market. HLL's Lever Ayush strategies are also in the same line.