Green Pharmacy - II

Standardisation parameters for ayurved

Authentication and standardisation parameters and procedures must be evolved and enforced by law in the form of pharmacopoeia so that the consumer gets genuine goods, say Prof. Ram Harsh Singh and Dr Vipin Bihari Gupta in the concluding part of the article

There are several advances that are extremely relevant to ayurvedic medicines eg. use of tissue culture techniques in production of herbal drug-substances, aseptic processing and preservation techniques like lyophilization in enhancing the shelf-life of drug-products, and chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques in standardisation of drug-substances as well as drug-products.

Ayurved has several biotechnology based products eg. Asav & Arista, and hence, use of modern biotechnology might play a pivotal role. From quite some time one of the major forefront of advances in pharmaceutical technology has been drug delivery and targeting. This area got its initial flip from the need of reducing adverse side effects of potent allopathic drugs, but now it has become a necessity as newer drugs are protein or gene based and would fail fulfill the intended job unless delivered with cellular or molecular precision.

This research area has received further momentum from the advent of nanotechnology, which is the hottest quarter of current times superseding ‘information technology’ and ‘biotechnology.’ Precisely, nanotechnology is a science of making things smaller (literally one billionth of a metre) and it is believed that it will have such a great impact on mankind that it will not only change the way we live, but also the way we think.

A remarkable point about nanotechnology is that it is highly inspired by the life. The life not only has working units of nanometer size, but also speeds of nanoseconds.

Life’s basic unit is ‘cell’, which has its dimensions in micrometers, but cell is only a canister; the real events take place in its organelles or biomolecules that essentially fall into nanometer size range. Advances in nanotechnology are paving way towards self-assembling and auto-replicating nano-devises having built-in memory and intelligence abilities. The dream is of a nano-robot that could move in all locations of the body with cellular or sub-cellular precision without any hindrance, like an ant in a rat’s hole.

Communication gap

Unfortunately, Ayurved and modern science are maintaining distance. Modern science demands experimental evidence hard data, which ayurved lacks as it mainly evolves on intuition. At the other hand, ayurvedacharyas fear that if they allow too much interference of modern science then their system might loose its wisdom, purity and sanctity.

This distance and communication gap is keeping mankind deprived of synergistic benefits. For any material to qualify as drug it should comply with two parameters ie. it should be safe as well as effective. Out of which, safety is of paramount importance and ayurved has been very particular about it. It says, “A therapy which pacifies diseases and gives rise to other diseases is not pure therapy, the pure is one that pacifies without erupting other problems (Prayogah shamyet vyadhim yah anyamanyamudiryet; naso vishudhah shudhastu shamyedwau na kopyet //Vagbhatta A H. Su. 13:16//).

Contrary to this principle of ayurved, allopathic medicines initially did not bother sufficient enough for side-effects hence resulted in disasters like thalidomide catastrophe. Though, now allopathy has realised that safety comes first and has put it in phase I of clinical trials, still modern medicines are generally not regarded safe because safety establishment requires passing the ‘test of time’ and modern medicines do not survive long.

Consequently, allopathic medicines are generally regarded unsafe though effective and ayurvedic the vise-versa. Had holistic wisdom and modern science been communicating with each other, we would have by now developed a galaxy of medicines having ayurvedic safety and allopathic efficacy. The communication gap at one hand devoid the modern drugs from pious wisdom of ayurved that is essential for harnessing lasting goodness.

At the other, ayurved could not develop strong standardisation and authentication protocols and suffered in taking advantage of modern production technologies that are now-a-days essential for commercial survival. The forward-looking ayurvedic manufacturers who use modern technology fear whether they are doing the right thing or not because collateral research has not been done.

Gap abridging

Amidst of the isolation from the two sides there have always been unorganised attempts by the adventurers towards the fusion of the two. Several researchers of modern system attempted to explore ayurved likewise several ayurvedic companies attempted to use modern technology. The honeymoon of modern medicines is over, the enthusiasm that aroused hopes that allopathic medicines would do miracles, is shattered.

As a matter of fact, allopathy is yet to invent curative medicines for such simple and common ailments such as cough and cold. Allopathic system has been trapped in the philosophy of managing the diseases that neither lets the disease, nor the patient die. This tactic could be beneficial to the pharmaceutical companies but it’s ugly from humanitarian viewpoint.

Perhaps, the disease management has reached such an advanced stage that people have started making an allowance for euthanasia in extreme cases where neither the disease dies nor the patient and life becomes worse than death.

The failure of allopathic system has forced mankind to reconsider holistic systems. It is much sensible to manage health then to manage disease, which is the basic difference between ayurvedic and allopathic systems. At this juncture, Ayurved needs to seize the opportunity by carefully incorporating modern technology in it. It has been said that Ayurved is trikalabadhit (it is unaffected by the time) still adjustments are required to cater the needs of a particular time and place.

As such, many herbs mentioned in Ayurved have become extinct or are at the verge of it, and hence, it is imperative to use modern technology-based alternative methods in their production. Likewise, authentication and standardisation parameters and procedures must not only be evolved but also enforced by law in the form of Pharmacopoeia so that the consumer gets genuine goods. For all this to happen, massive organised efforts are required with proper education and training being the first leap forward. It’s what RAU is pioneering in.

Prof Singh is the founder VC of RAU and has earlier been Dean, Faculty of Ayurved at BHU. Dr Gupta is member, Select Subject Committee at RAU and Head, Department of Pharmaceutics at LMCST