Tips to increase the quality of natural products

A miscommunication seems to exist between scientists and the industry, which creates challenges when it comes to the quality control of natural products.

Academic scientists primarily focus on investigating the bioactivity of medicinal plants for their potential therapeutic use in cosmetics, cosmeceuticals or pharmaceuticals. Yet proper standardisation techniques and the potential therapeutic applications need to be considered throughout the investigation process.

The academic workflow includes the drug discovery and development phase (pharmacodynamics), the safety assessment and potential contraindications and drug interactions (pharmacokinetics) as well as the clinical investigation. Although it appears the invention is ready to be commercialised or licensed out at this stage, a lot of additional research is still required by the industry before it can reach the market.

While experiments are repeated in the laboratory to determine reproducibility, they are often only conducted on the original extract prepared from one plant sample collected in the same season from the same plant. The influence of season, geography, agriculture processing and the growth conditions of the plant are often overlooked; these are critical when it comes to commercial farming and extract manufacturing.

Various critical aspects need to be incorporated into academic research projects, focusing on product development.

Plant material

It is standard procedure at any research institution to deposit a herbarium specimen of the plant on which research will be conducted, documenting the person who collected the specimen, the date and time of collection and the location, which can include GPS coordinates. Also useful to the industry, but not always recorded, is the size or age of the plant from which was collected. This data is important as the active compound(s), with the specific biological activity for the product or drug, differs in different stages of the plant’s growth.

Another important aspect is the condition or health of the plant, as stress might have influenced its bioactivity, which will differ when compared to the bioactivity of a cultivated plant. The plant part, which is normally listed in scientific publications, should be specified, and further details should be documented for industry, such as the age of the leaves – were they large hardened leaves, apical buds or newly formed leaves? If twigs were included, were they hardened or still new growth?

As a researcher, one might think this information doesn’t matter in relation to finding out whether a plant has potential, but when it comes to product or drug development, these are the small things that can greatly influence the quality control of the product.

There are other aspects to notewhen research is conducted onplants, including:

• samples should be collected during allfour seasons

• different locations should be used for sample collection, which might ultimately become suppliers of the plant material to the industry

• for the initial bioactivity screening, samples should be collected from different plant parts.

These aspects will ensure the identification of the optimal season and collection point on which more in-depth research can be based. This helps save time for the natural product industry and results in better quality control and a standardised product.