An innovational Challenge on Drugs Discovery: Tackling Challenges by Herbal Medicines a Contribution towards Modern Therapeutics *Balaji Panigrahi *Lovely School of Ayurvedic Pharmaceutical Sciences, LPU, Punjab 14441, India Email: bkp99@live.com Abstract- Approximately 80% of antimicrobial and anticancer drugs are of plant origin. With thousands of plant species on earth, we are endowed with an enormous wealth of medicinal remedies from Mother Nature. Natural products and their derivatives represent more than 50% of all the drugs in modern therapeutics. Because of the low success rate and huge capital investment need, the research and development of conventional drugs are very costly and difficult. Over the past few decades, researchers have focused on drug discovery from herbal medicines or botanical sources. With a long history of herbal usage for the clinical management of a variety of diseases in indigenous cultures, the success rate of developing a new drug from herbal medicinal preparations should, in theory, be higher than that from chemical synthesis. While the endeavour for drug discovery from herbal medicines is “experience driven,” the search for a therapeutically useful synthetic drug, like “looking for a needle in a haystack,” is a daunting task. In this paper, we first illustrated various approaches of drug discovery from herbal medicines. Typical examples of successful drug discovery from botanical sources were given documented in the literature and have provided fruitful outcomes in the area of drug discovery drawing on Ayurvedic experiential databases. In addition, problems in drug discovery from herbal medicines were described and possible solutions were proposed. The prospect of drug discovery from herbal medicines in the post genomic era was made with the provision of future directions in this area of drug development. Keywords: Drug Discovery, Herbal, Drug development Figure 2: Current approaches for drug discovery from herbal medicines. Figure 3: Current extraction techniques for herbal medicines. Typical Examples of Drug Discovery from Herbal Medicine Antimalarial drugs developed from Artemisia annua and therapeutic agents for the treatment of hepatitis developed from the fruit of Fructus schisandrae chinensis (FSC) are the typical examples of successful drug discovery from herbal medicines. These remarkable achievements in research and development of THM have received worldwide acceptance. Systems Pharmacology and Drug Discovery from Herbal Medicine The typical drug development process from herbal medicines includes at least four differential aspects: Predrug Stage Modern herbal Medicine Quasidrug Stage (1)isolation or artificial synthesis of bioactive ingredient(s) in herbal medicines; (2) evaluation of safety and efficacy using systems pharmacological methods; (3) evaluation of safety and efficacy by means of conventional pharmacological methods; and(4) regulatory approval of the therapeutic agent to be used in the market and post market monitoring. Figure 4: Anti-Malarial and Liver protective Agents of different stages and THM which received worldwide acceptance. Figure 5: Available databases in drug discovery. Figure 6: Available approaches in preserving the endangered plants or herbs used in herbal medicines. Conclusion: As ancient humans adopted a plant-based found out an impressive number of chemicals have been isolated either from medicinal plants or synthesized on the basis of natural lead compounds. Therefore the use of herbal/plant medicine has been the single most successful strategy for the development of novel therapeutic agents, and this trend will be continued in the future. Reference : S. Y. Pan, S. H. Gao, S. F. Zhou et al.,“New Perspectives on How to Discover Drugs from Herbal Medicines,Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 20–36, 2012. Introduction The pharmaceutical industry is one of the pillar industries for economic development worldwide. Although drug discovery has been driven by a variety of technology platforms (Figure 1), which can also expedite the development of therapeutic agents from herbal medicines, drug development remains a lengthy process with a low rate of success and huge capital investment. Figure 1: An array of technology platforms driving drug discovery. Current Approaches of Drug Discovery from Herbal Medicine Today, approximately 80% of antimicrobial, cardiovascular, immunosuppressive, and anticancer drugs are of plant origin; their sales exceeded US$ 65 billion in 2003. It is widely accepted that more than 80% of drug substances are either directly derived from natural products or developed from a natural compound . And, in fact, around 50% of pharmaceuticals are derived from compounds first identified or isolated from herbs/plants, including organisms, animals, and insects, as active ingredients. Drug discovery from Herbs may be divided into three stages, namely, predrug stage, quasidrug stage, and full-drug stage. They are described in detail in Figure 2. Herb or preparation Single Compound Phytochemical group Extract Traditional herbal medicine system Folk medicines Practical experience Botanical medicine Foodstuffs Wild animal eating behavior Serendipitous events See Figure 3 Flavonoids, alkaloids, glucides, glycosides, volatile oils, resins, phytochromes, organic acids, amino acids, tannins, proteins, enzymes, trace elements, polysaccharides, mineral salts and so forth Purification and/or lead compound structure modification Marketed drug Liver Protective Agents Fructus schisandrae chinensis(TK) FSC Ethanol extract Bifendate Anti-Malarial Agents Artemisia annua (TK) Artemisinin Artemether (Benflumetol) Preclinical trial Automated Separation techniques Clinical trial Genomics Biochip Full-drug Stage Plant Cell Culture Purification Computer-aided drug design Bioinformatics Herbal-to-synthetic Hybrid Molecule Drug Discovery Modern Herbal Medicine Metabonomics Proteomics Herbal-to-herbal Transcriptomics System biology Others: synthetic natural ingredients; herbal ingredient combined with synthetics; herbal metabolites in vivo; new compounds from herb-herb interaction High-throughput and high content screening Transgenic and RNAi technology Water extraction Conventional techniques Organic Solvent Extraction DrugBank PubChem BioAssay Dry herb Fresh herb Available Databases in Drug Discovery Therapeutic Targets Database (TTD) Potential Drug Target Database (PDTD) Fat-soluble components Water-soluble components Herbal extracts Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) World Molecular Bioactivity (WOMBAT) Heat-resistant components Heat-labile Components Indian plant anticancer compounds database (InPACdb) Traditional Chinese medicine information database (TCHM-ID) Herbal Medicine Databases The herb information Knowledge base (THINKherb) Traditional Chinese medicines integrated database (TCMID) Semibionic extraction New techniques Microwave extraction Transgentic medicinal plants Supercritical Fluid extraction Steam distillation Cell Culture Full use Enzyme method Prohibits the usage Control the usage Save the endangered herbal medicine Plants, which constitute a major component of foodstuffs in humans, have formed the basis of various traditional medicine systems Based on the experience from random trials and observations in animals, ancient people acquired the knowledge of using herbs for treating illness. 2.1 Predrug Stage The preparation of extracts and phytochemical groups from herbs, including the discovery of lead compounds by using modern and conventional research tools. 2.2 Quasidrug Stage Hybrid molecules consisting of distinct drug entities covalently linked in a single molecule 2.3 Full-Drug Stage Bacteria make the active ingredients Synthetic herbal ingredients Search for alternative species Cultivation of medicinal plants Presented at 29th Annual Conference of IPGA