A Review of the Importation of Medicinal Plants and Clinical Indication, in Asia

Medicinal plants are the most important source of life saving drugs for the majority of the world’s population. Most of the compounds used for human medication are derived from plants which plays a significant role in development of new pharma products. Secondary metabolites derived from the plants are economically important drugs, fragrance, pigments, food additives and pesticides. These include saponin, L. Dopa, quercetin, hentriacontane, niacin, cyanidin, serotonin, alanine, alpha amyrin, arabinose, betaamyrin, campesterol, daucosterol, thymine, riboflavin, calcium oxalate flavonoids. Quite a lot of promising new agents are in clinical development based on selective activity against clinical–related molecular targets, including flavopiridols and combretastatin a4 phosphate, and some agents which failed in earlier clinical studies are stimulating renewed interest. Also there are some of the semi synthetic plant derivatives which are clinically used as potential anti clinical agents. These traditional and preliminary scientific work on these plant products are giving promising result, further research in the same is to be continued to derive potent anti clinical agents from medicinal plant.