Regulations to control and direct the herbal industry

Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP)
As per the June 23 Gazette of India all the existing herbal industries should follow the GMP pattern for production and a grace period of two years is given for existing units. This means at least a million rupee investment and documentation work. Most of the small players of the 7,000 units will have to stop their operation.
National Bio Diversity Act - 2000
This Act which will be placed in the Parliament in the coming session and is a major step in controlling the use of medicinal plants and limiting the benefit of IPR to India as well as helping conservation by sustainable utilisation. Under this Act even the collection of wild plants needs the consent from the State Bio-diversity board. Also collaboration with agencies abroad will require permission from this Board.
New Drugs Act
Another act which may change the Drug and Cosmetic Act related to herbal industry is the new categories being brought to Ayurvedic drugs. So all Ayurvedic drugs were either classical preparations as per the text (no dosage improvement, also no excise duty) or patent proprietary (excisable but less than its modern counterpart).
The amended Drug & Cosmetics Act comes with four categories of herbal preparations which will be specified in the drug licence issued.
1. Classical
2. Patent and proprietary
3. Herbal cosmetics
4. Industrial supplements
Even in the herbal cosmetic category soaps herbal and shampoos, etc., are not included. That means another category may have to be adopted for them.
Many leading pharmaceutical concerns have already ventured into Ayurveda or other herbal industries. GUFIC-Bombay is said to have only herbal products. Their allopathic units no longer interest them.
All these efforts makes sense because it is not just the domestic market one is looking into. The global market, especially the American and European markets, are said to be growing at a rate of 35 per cent a year (a record growth for last three years continuously). America is literally undergoing a herbal and natural product revolution.
So a time may come when the affluent, educated and sophisticated will use the costly and highly evolved, free-from-side effects, herbal products and the poor and less informed in the

Challenges

Challenges

1. Commercialisation of ayurvedic products


2. Formulations for large-scale preparation


3. Herbal preparations in modern dosage ഫോറം


4. Drug Regulatory Laws and possible adverse effects on the tiny Ayurvedic sector to the Vaidya who prepares his medicine.
5. Availability of Row Material (Raw medicines)

STATUS OF AYURVEDA IN INDIA

STATUS OF AYURVEDA IN INDIA
The Indian government and non-government organizations have been collecting statistics on the Ayurvedic system in India and these data about the manpower and institutional aspects of Ayurveda have emerged:
Number of registered medical practitioners: 366,812
Number of dispensaries: 22,100
Number of hospitals: 2,189
Number of hospital beds: 33,145
Number of teaching institutions (undergraduate): 187
Number of upgraded postgraduate departments: 51
Number of specialties in postgraduate medical training: 16
Number of pharmacies manufacturing Ayurvedic medicines: 8,400
In India, 60% of registered physicians are involved in non-allopathic systems of medicine. In addition to the nearly 400,000 Ayurvedic practitioners, there are over 170,000 homeopathic physicians; India has about 500,000 medical doctors (similar to the number in the U.S., but serving nearly 4 times as many people)

Ayurvedic industry

The Ayurvedic industry in India is around 100 years old. The earliest players were Dabur in the East, Dodh Pappaswer in the West, Kottakkal in the South, and Vaidya Nath in the North. All these groups were founded between 1890 and 1910. Before that the Ayurvedic industry was confined to the physicians and was more a service than a profession. The knowledge was considered sacred and was believed to have spiritual origins. In the process of westernisation and consequent commercialisation of healing, Ayurveda also had to become a part of this process.
Ayurvedic medicines are produced by several thousand companies in India, but most of them are quite small, including numerous neighborhood pharmacies that compound ingredients to make their own remedies. It is estimated that the total value of products from the entire Ayurvedic production in India is on the order of one billion dollars (U.S.). The industry has been dominated by less than a dozen major companies for decades, joined recently by a few others that have followed their lead, so that there are today 30 companies doing a million dollars or more per year in business to meet the growing demand for Ayurvedic medicine. The products of these companies are included within the broad category of "fast moving consumer goods" (FMCG; which mainly involves foods, beverages, toiletries, cigarettes, etc.). Most of the larger Ayurvedic medicine suppliers provide materials other than Ayurvedic internal medicines, particularly in the areas of foods and toiletries (soap, toothpaste, shampoo, etc.), where there may be some overlap with Ayurveda, such as having traditional herbal ingredients in the composition of toiletries.

Ayurveda

The science of Ayurveda is the collective wisdom of the greatest minds down the ages of Indian history. This wisdom has been refined and tested over millenniums and remains as one of the most effective & holistic methods of treatment in the world today. Although the science of Ayurveda is ancient, the health-care challenges of the modern world are plentiful and necessitate a re-energisation & studied understanding of the science in a changed context. It is here that the basic principles of Ayurveda play a major role. These principles show a complete understanding and thorough knowledge of the human body and its functions. In harnessing the power of these principles, lies the potential for the cure of many modern diseases.