Herbal Formulations: Development, Challenges, Testing, Stability, and Regulatory Guidelines
摘要
Herbal formulations consist of herbal medications in the form of plant extracts, enhanced fractions, or biomarker components. Herbal preparations offer distinct benefits due to their enhanced absorption and lower toxicity. There is a scarcity of literature that specifically discuss the typical difficulties encountered in preparation of herbal formulations, such as the process of choosing the appropriate kind or class of formulations for an extract or a phytochemical. This chapter focuses on herbal formulation development from a selection of suitable formulations to getting the regulatory approval of diverse herbal nanoformulations. This chapter intends to present the latest progress in many types of herbal nanomedicines, such as polymeric herbal nanoparticles, solid lipid nanoparticles, micelles, liposomes, dendrimers, nanoemulsions, and nanosuspension. Further, the testing methodologies to maintain the quality of herbal medicine and associated challenges to meet the desired quality are discussed in brief. Additionally, regulatory considerations required to meet the quality and safety standards are also summarized. A combination of herbal medicine with nanotechnology can be an essential instrument to get better therapeutic performance of herbal medicine. Despite the problems associated with the quality, uniformity, and stability of traditional herbal medicine, there is great potential for nanotechnology-based herbal formulations to treat a range of diseases. Overall, herbal nanomedicines have been showing promising therapeutic potential making them a promising alternative of synthetic pharmaceutical and traditional herbal formulations.