India traditionally, from the days of Vedas, has been the land of Ayurveda and herbal medicines. The concept of allopathy creeped into India much later. The growth of ayurveda, homeopathy and herbal medicine remained stunted as allopathy provided quick solution to the ailment while the alternative medicines did take their cycle of time for healing.
Government of India did realise its importance and floated an Ayush Ministry in November 2014, primarily to protect the tradition of ayurveda, unani, herbal medicines etc. As far as homepathy is concerned, it already had a big established base in European countries like Germany.
“Homeopathy market in India is estimated to be of about Rs 2800 crore and is also expected to double by the end of next year. The sector also accounts for about 20 per cent of the total healthcare market in India. IMRB survey (done in seven major cities in India) says that in general 85 per cent of the people are aware of Dr Batra’s clinic and about 51 per cent of people will prefer homeopathic treatment over allopathic,” said Dr Akshay Batra, vice chairman and managing director, Dr Batra’s Group of Companies.
Dr Jayshree Thakur of Homeopathic Healthcare and Clinic, Caranzalem told Herald, “Homoeopathy has proven effective in treating chronic illnesses that do not respond to mainstream treatment. The treatment is aimed at relieving the whole individual rather than treating the parts of the body, the concept of holistic healing of homoeopathy has attracted people towards this system. It is extremely safe to use for everyone as it is gentle in administering and it is a natural system.”
According to global industry analysis, it is estimated that global herbal market will reach to $107 billion by end of 2017. As per the WHO reports, about three-quarters of the world’s population currently use herbs and other forms of traditional medicines to treat diseases.
“Nowadays, people have more faith towards traditional medicines then modern medicines due to occurrence of many side effects of modern medicines. This shows that herbal is one of the most noticeable expressions of substitute medication practiced throughout the world not only for cure but also in prevention of various diseases,” said Dr Maria Cordeiro, managing director and co-founder of Goa Pharma told Herald.
The annual turnover of Indian herbal manufacturing industry is about Rs 2,300 crore which is far lesser than the conventional pharmaceuticals.
“Usually people have a stubborn mind set and need a health related wake up call to take serious measures, this can be avoided by starting to live a healthy life from the start by going herbal. When we say herbal that does not signify only cosmetic items, which is in fact a perception of the public. Over the last decade, even with recent economic recession, herbal medicines and remedies market exhibited healthy growth since herbal formulations and remedies gives healthier, more cost-effective, and innocuous option to consumer to get rid of various disorders,” added Dr Cordeiro.
Many drugs originated from plant sources: a century ago, most of the few effective drugs were plant based, the examples include aspirin (willow bark), dioxin (from foxglove), quinine (from cinchona bark), and morphine (from the opium poppy). Herbal medicine is an effective healing method, but requires to be viewed more enthusiastically since there is a need for it and hence more awareness needs to be created.
“Worldwide, herbal medicines received a boost when WHO encouraged developing countries to use traditional plant medicine to fulfill needs not met by modern systems, but this is just the start. I, understood the potentials of herbal extracts during my PhD research which enforced the belief that if a single plant can have wonderful benefits in cancer, consider what a combination of such plants can do to other diseases. Hence I started with Goa Pharma to provide a solution to health problems,” said Maria Cordeiro.
Manufacturers of herbs and other dietary supplements are not required to provide evidence of safety or effectiveness the way they must for drugs, but Goan Pharma does not believe in this simply because its human life which is at stake. Hence only after rigorous testing, they have recently launched their product Denpap into the market for Dengue and have been doing a brisk sale in last six months. They are prepared for the season to erupt so as to help the patients fight against this disease that provides relief within a span of 3-5 days.
“We have already started marketing in Bangalore, Chennai and Goa and are in search of more marketing companies that will be interested in collaborating with us. We have another product for prevention and treatment of heart disease that will be released shortly. Similarly, we have a pipeline of novel herbal medicines which can provide relief at an affordable rate to the patients suffering from a disease or interlinked diseases that have no targeted therapy. We intend to take the first step of setting up a laboratory for testing our product in Goa soon since we are outsourcing the same in absence of any such facility here. In the near future, we will also set up our own production unit for our series of products as well as grow medicinal plants in collaboration with Goan farmers so as to be more self-dependent,” said Dr Cordeiro.
