Crude Drugs and Plant Products

Plants extract, either as pure compounds or as standardized extracts, provide unlimited opportunities for new drug discoveries. Extraction is the crucial step in the analysis of medicinal plants, because it is necessary to extract the desired chemical components from the plant materials for further separation and characterization. Crude Drug will be any regularly occurring, foul substance determined starting with natural alternately inorganic sources for example, plant, animal, bacteria, organs or whole organisms exceptional for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or aversion about ailment over people or other animals. Use and exploration of crude drugs has gained prominence in the medical community. The realization that many completely unknown substances are yet to be discovered from crude drugs has created a new interest in pharmacognosy and has led to many medical breakthroughs.

The largest global markets for medicinal and aromatic plants are China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Netherlands, UK and the US It is estimated that Europe alone annually imports about 400,000 tonnes of medicinal plants with an average market value of US$ 1 billion from Africa and Asia. Japan: has the highest per capita consumption of botanical medicine in the world. Botanical medicine market in Japan in 1996 was estimated at US $ 2.4 billion and sales have grown rapidly in recent years. China: china's total output of medicinal plants from both cultivated and wild harvested sources is 1.6 million tones. The total value of the finished TCM in 1996 was US$ 3.7 billion. This estimate excludes domestic consumption, the inclusion of which would result in a far higher figure. Overall sale of botanical medicine products in China in 1995 was estimated at US$ 5 billion. Studies suggest that approximately 20% of people in the United States use herbal supplements, and the amount of money spent on these products exceed $4.2 billion per year. UK: The UK imports up to 90% of its medicinal herb requirement