Rangsit, Chinese Varsities Set Up Herbal-Drug Factory: Thailand

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Rangsit, Chinese varsities set up herbal-drug factory

THE NATION

Krisana

BANGKOK: -- Privately run Rangsit University (RSU) has set up a factory to produce herbal medicines in collaboration with a Chinese institute of higher education.

RSU has entered an agreement with Heilongjiang University to collaborate on research to prove the effectiveness and safety of herbal medicines in the treatment of five diseases, including diabetes, gout and insomnia.

The move, it believes, will pave the way for Thai herbal medicines to tap into the global market.

"We are now working on a medicine that can reduce stress," Krisana Kraisintu said yesterday in her capacity as the dean of RSU Faculty of Pharmacy.

She said the formula had 40 herbal ingredients.

Krisana said RSU and China's Heilongjiang University would have equal rights to use the research results or any patent that resulted from it.

According to her, the joint research should yield concrete results within three to four years.

Krisana, a former director of the Research and Development Institute at the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO), won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service in 2009 for her decades-long efforts to increase underprivileged patients' access to medicines.

She said she hoped to see low-cost herbal medicines available for cancer treatments in the near future.

Many Thai herbs such as turmeric, galingale and Eurocoma longifolia jack have medicinal properties, she said.

RSU president Arthit Ourairat said the collaboration between his university and Heilongjiang University had already led to the establishment of the Sun Herb Thai Chinese Manufacturing factory.

He described it as a prototype factory for the manufacture of Chinese-Thai herbal medicines.

"This factory will produce herbal medicines in line with Good Manufacturing Practice standards," Arthit said.

Krisana said the factory had the capacity to produce 30,000 pills, or between 15,000 and 20,000 capsules, a day.

The factory has already received orders for herbal medicines, she said, adding: "We will take orders for reliable medicinal formulas only."

The factory is one of 500 herbal-medicine manufacturing facilities across Thailand, and the first to be operated by a university.

"We hope our high manufacturing standards will set a good standard for the overall industry," Krisana said.

-- The Nation 2012-11-02

[jerrysteve]

That is very good news...

I have read most of the literature and objesctive research done Doctors both in the West the west and much of it from Japan also..

and no side effects. As a matter of fact,Japanese Medical Doctors are prescribing Maitake Mushrooms for their cancer patience with

much success. The Reishi Mushrooms as well..

WikePedia is an excellent source for many of the Chinese herbs backed up hard facts and hard experiments that described the benefits

to many diseases.

[asiawatcher]

The headline reads like the Uni wants to producer herbal drugs - but the article is simply about another natural herbal food supplier in competition to all established others.

Why not use a herbal substitute for drugs and try breaking the destructive addictive habits of addicts? That at least would not just be another "me too" company in the market place which is saturated at present anyway.

[eezergood]

Kratong leaves will be used in their thousands, for strictly medicinal use only!

[bumpkin]

That is very good news...

I have read most of the literature and objesctive research done Doctors both in the West the west and much of it from Japan also..

and no side effects. As a matter of fact,Japanese Medical Doctors are prescribing Maitake Mushrooms for their cancer patience with

much success. The Reishi Mushrooms as well..

WikePedia is an excellent source for many of the Chinese herbs backed up hard facts and hard experiments that described the benefits

to many diseases.

There has been some research into the active compounds contained within some herbs. but not in all cases and not exhaustively or too critically.

Certainlly not enough to be acceptable to the USA FDA or any European pharmaceutical standards.

When some incident occurs in the west caused by unforseen outcomes of modern drug use, the population at large, is rightly alarmed.

There is a great need for the most stringent of testing, before any of these naturally occuring chemicals are incorporated into saleable medication, whatever the level of anecdotal submissions. Many of this historical and anencdotal evidence arises from times before the age of Post-Mortem examination or in cultures where PMs are not practised.

Not so long ago, chemicals such as arsenic or mercury were medically acceptable, as they had been for centuries.

One only hopes that research at this University will be of the highest international standard, and not influencd by the financial outcomes.

((Wikipedia is a souce of information, whether that is all hard fact or not, is open for debate. As with much scientific reporting, the results may be clear, but the difficulties arise in their interpretation. ))