Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala (AVS), a century old charitable institution engaged in the practice and propagation of Ayurveda, in a bid to facilitate the availability of scientific pharmacological data of their formulations, has completed the primary clinical trial of some of their products. The study of three of their products has been completed and one more is on the verge of completion. The company has invested about Rs 14 lakh in this venture.

It may be noted that AVS had entered into a MoU with J S S College of Pharmacy, Ooty, a year back to test the efficacy of the formulations that would be presented in customer friendly forms. As Pharmabiz had earlier reported, AVS will be manufacturing such customer friendly products in the proposed manufacturing in Nanjangud, Karnataka.

The company desires to provide the classical and conventional ayurvedic products in a more customer friendly manner such as tablets, capsules, gel, syrups etc. AVS also has plans to market such products in the Northern part of India too at a later stage.

"We have never been able to capture the markets of Northern India. There only some people have knowledge about Kerala form of Ayurveda. Even though Ayurveda is practiced there too, their approach is different; they use more of "Rasaoushadhis" which are nothing else but drugs having metals and minerals in them (bhasmams). But we are not sure whether our bitter kashayams, grithams and oils will be accepted there. That is the reason why we want to present the products in the modern form, which can be easily consumed by people," said T S Murali, Chief of R&D, AVS.

Murali added, "Nowadays certain segments of the allopathic doctors also inclined towards prescribing herbal based products, but they would need to have the information about the toxicity, efficacy, stability and safety of the product before prescribing it. They would desist from advising them to the patients if there is content of heavy metal in them. So this is one of the reasons why we delved into this venture. Once the trials are completed we will be bringing out dossiers containing all the details of the product and the same will be brought to the notice of the doctors too. "

He said that the new generation products that would be manufactured in modern form would be initially marketed in South India, then Mumbai and Delhi and at a later stage it would be marketed in other parts of India too. "We are in the process of creating out a new marketing structure through which these new generation medicines would be marketed. The conventional medicines would be distributed in the same old marketing structure," averred Murali.