Cough relief sans the risk: Plant-based remedies safe, effective

Philippine Daily Inquirer

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Who would have thought that unassuming plants and herbs that grew in our backyard would be parlayed into a multi-million-peso industry one day? Clinical studies proving phytomedicines’ (or plant-based drugs) efficacy and growing consumer trust and patronage  have created a huge market for such natural-based remedies. As a result, big pharmaceutical companies in the Philippines have begun to aggressively develop new products from  indigenous sources.

Sales figures, from Lagundi-based cough medicines alone, rose from P38 million in 2004 to an astounding P500 million in October 2011. Pascual Laboratories (PascualLab), the first pharmaceutical company to develop and market the first licensed herbal medicine in the country, accounts for 90 percent of this figure thanks to its Ascof Lagundi brand, the most  successful  phytomedicine in  the Philippines.

Ascof was the first herbal medicine licensed by the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development and the Department of Science and Technology. It was introduced by PascualLab in 1996 in collaboration with the National Integrated Research Program of Medicinal Plants, the government institution that undertakes research on herbal plants for medicinal purposes.

Today, PascualLab has its own Herbal R&D and Product & Process Development groups which collaborate with independent medical and research institutions in the country to continuously improve its products. Innovations that the company has implemented in over two decades have resulted in the Ascof that it is today—having higher quality than products produced using an older technology.

The brand has since then become synonymous to safe and natural healing  that is anchored on scientific foundation, all-natural ingredients and PascualLab’s heritage that is respected by consumers and the industry as a whole.

The company gives consumers the assurance that only organically grown and 100-percent natural lagundi leaves are used in the formulation of Ascof, making it the superior brand in the market. It has an all-organic, award-winning 40-hectare Leoni Agri Corp. plantation in Nueva Ecija that is free of all  pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers and other chemicals. It is a vast herbal repository where the best and high quality medicinal plant varieties are nurtured. Lagundi leaves used in Ascof come from here, carefully processed before being packaged into capsule, tablet and syrup forms.

But in the midst of all the buzz on phytomedicines, Ascof should not be confused with herbal or food supplements. It is categorized as a medicine developed through years of scientific research and validated by clinical trials. Its HMR-01 registration number shows that Ascof is the first plant-based medicine registered under the Food and Drug Administration.

Trusting Ascof is an easy decision for Filipino households to make because it has proven useful in solving their loved ones’ cough problems, keeping them safe from further health risks.

Herbal, marine drugs get shot in the arm

By GABRIEL S. MABUTAS

April 8, 2011, 5:50pm

MANILA, Philippines -- The Department of Science and Technology (DoST) is taking steps to centralize government-backed efforts to discover herbal and marine medicines.

Dr. Antonio Ligsay, chief of the research development management division of the DoST’s Philippine Council for Health Research Development (PCHRD), said they are in the initial stage of developing a plan on how to centralize researches that have to do with the discovery of herbal and marine medicines.

He said one of their priorities in the next six years is the discovery and development of herbal and marine medicines.

Ligsay said that by October they will present the plan to the DoST secretary for approval and implementation. He said it would be comprehensively drafted by the AIM.

He said they are talking with the University of the Philippines, University of Santo Tomas and De La Salle University about sharing their database with his agency to sharpen focus on the discovery and development of herbal and marine medicines.

Ligsay said their effort is intended to lower the cost of herbal and marine medicines and eventually increase the number of natural medicines developed in the country.

Dr. Edwin Bien, a medical expert who strongly advocates the use of plant medicine, has been lamenting the failure of most of his colleagues in the medical profession to observe the law that promotes the use of traditional alternative medicines.

Bien noted that RA 8423 hardly gets support from medical practitioners although the number of plants it requires to prescribe was quite small compared to the number of plants that are proven to have medicinal value.

He said it was only recently that he learned that although the country has already more than 200 available plant medicines, the number required for prescription has never gone beyond 10.

He said it is ironic that most doctors do not promote plant medicines when the law has been in existence for 20 years.

“Why is it that although Philippines is the only country in world with a law promoting plant medicines, and also the only country where doctors do not prescribe them?” Bien said.

He noted that although they do not have the same law, doctors in other Asian countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand prescribe plant medicines. Even in European countries, plant medicines are being recognized and promoted, Bien said.

Bien said most medicines being prescribed do not cure, but merely offer temporary relief.

“But when you do give these plants, it would improve immune system. (Those taking it) would have a better batting average than if they only have the synthetic medicine in the body,” he said.