From a medicinal plant to a pharmaceutical dosage form. A (still) long way for Brazilian medicinal plants

RESUMO

Phytopharmaceutical drugs play an important role in the Brazilian health system considering both economic and cultural perspectives. Pondering the richness of the Brazilian flora and the wide use of medicinal plants by the population, there should be sufficient knowledge to apply that information as a suitable starting point to transform medicinal plants into adequate industrial pharmaceutical dosage forms. Problems involving lack of organized knowledge and scientific information are not sufficiently solved to accomplish the modern drug concept, which has to consider efficacy, safety and constant quality. On basis of one of the most used medicinal plants in southern Brazil, Achyrocline satureioides, this paper presents and discusses the problems involving the transformation of medicinal plants into phytopharmaceutical drugs, showing some steps carried out by the academic milieu in order to provide answers to solve this question.