Abstract

AN OVERVIEW OF PLANT MEDICINES IN NOVEL FORM

B. Swathy*, M. Menaka and Prabhakar Reddy Veerareddy

Abstract

Plants or plant parts that have been converted into pharmaceuticals by means of simple processes involving harvesting, collecting, drying, extracting, preparation, evaluation and storage is known as Phytopharmaceuticals or Herbal drugs. Other crude products derived from plants, such as essential oils, fatty oils, resins, and gums also include in herbal formulations. There is increasing awareness and general acceptability of the use of herbal drugs in today’s medical practice. Evaluation of herbal drug is an important tool in the formulation of high quality herbal products as there is increase in demand of these formulations all over the world. Herbal medicines widely used in health-care in both developed and developing countries are complex chemical mixtures prepared from plants and are limited. An overview covering various techniques employed in extraction, characterization, formulation, evaluation of herbal medicines is discussed. This review seeks to enlighten the knowledge in novel herbal medicine. On the need to establish quality parameters with the help of advanced analytical tools and well defined standardization methods in ensuring the safety of the global herbal market.

Keywords: Herbal, standardization, evaluation, types of herbal forms, novel.