Ethnopharmacology- A Novel Approach for Drug Discovery

The era of blockbuster drugs is now ending, the pharmaceutical industry is not as innovative due to shortage of new lead structures. Ethnopharmacology and natural product drug discovery remains a significant hope in the current scenario. Ethno pharmacology provides a divergent approach involving indigenous knowledge with current technology for drug development using new approaches.Natural products have been the source of active ingredients of many medicines from 1981 till date. Aspirin, artimesinin, colchicine, digoxin, ephedrine are few important drugs that were developed from medicinal plants in the past. Hurdles like lack of trials, safety and efficacy records, gap between old concepts and modern understanding, malpractice due to intense competition in drug research, carelessly carried out bioassays and biopiracy stop this knowledge from becoming mainstream. Physician can play an important role in overcoming some of these hurdles and strict guidelines are required for ethnoergogenics. A sincere effort needs to be made to prevent the loss of this rich traditional knowledge which can help drug discovery for many years to come.