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- EDD K. USMAN | Twitter: @edd1819 | Instagram: @bluestar0910 |Facebook: SDN — SciTech and Digital News
PASIG CITY, October 9, 2024 (SDN) — Herbanext Laboratories, Inc. President Philip S. Cruz of Davao City sees contradiction in saying the Philippines is a global center of biodiversity.
Why he said this, it is because while the Philippines has around 3,000 medicinal plants with potential for turning them into drugs (re: as medicines with therapeutic value), only two such as “sambong” and “lagundi” have transitioned from a mere grass or plant to medicines.
Each of the two drugs from plants, he pointed out, has become a Php500 million business annually.
Cruz, manufacturer and researcher, is the inventor of Tawa-Tawa Food Supplement which was already approved in 2019 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for dengue.
He said the product has four bioactivities, such as antidiabetic, antihypertensive, anti-inflammatory, anti-hypercholesterolemia, and antioxidant.
While he acknowledged that dengue has no cure, he said Herbanext’s Tawa-Tawa Food Supplement product is safe and effective for dengue as a food supplement.
He said that’s one of the problems, while it is widely known that some herbal plants are safe and effective, unless there is a “claim” approved by the FDA, doctors will not endorse them for treatment.
“We have to level up, look at this (herbal industry) in a bigger picture. We are not only helping ourselves, but we are helping our farmers, we are helping protect our forests,” says Cruz at the Kapihan sa Metro East Media Forum held along F. Manalo Street, Barangay Santo Tomas, in this National Capital Region (NCR) city.
“If we take notice of our herbal plants, the local governments will help. If not, people will only make them ‘uling’ (charcoal), which is now happening,” he adds.
A member of the “Tuklas Lunas Consortium” under the wings of the Philippine Council on Health Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PCHRD), Herbanext is based in Bago City, Negros Occidental, Western Visayas Region. It is the manufacturer of Tawa-Tawa Food Supplement, while there are many other extracts plants it has developed and ready for commercialization.
Cruz said he can’t ask for more from the DOST, it has been helping his company in its research initiatives, one of them the Tawa-Tawa Food Supplement which is now in the market in some drug stores. He said he is in the process with talking to pharmaceutical companies for collaboration.
DOST already invested heavily (through PCHRD’s Tuklas Lunas Program, he noted, pouring around Php1.5 billion through the years for the initiative to discover herbal plants with potentials to become medicines.
Global US$100 billion health herbal market should be enough motivation
“We are now OK with the science part. We only need the part on regulatory. Maybe, if there are ways to push these science-based products. If there can be an enabling law pushing the development of this herbal industry which can create thousands and thousands of jobs.
“It can protect our forests. It can make us wealthy. We are not just talking about food supplement. Along with this are functional food, herbal cosmetics. We are just looking at the tip of the iceberg,” Cruz emphasizes
He cited the cases of China which has over 2,000 farmers focused on cultivating medicinal plants, and India with 2,500 farmers doing the same. He said there is a need for many Filipino farmers to focus on herbal plants, noting that today’s number do not even exceed 1,000.
“All the elements are there. Marketing is the challenge, and funding for Phase 1. We hope the medical community opens its mind,” Cruz seems to ask. “Phase 1” is about assuring the “safety” of a product, while “Phase 2” goes into determining the efficacy of a drug product.
He cited the case of the Indigenous People (IP) tribe of the Ati in Zambales who hunts for herbal plants in the mountains, a very difficult and hazardous undertaking. They then sell as raw plants whatever they get but in very little amount. “There is no incentive to do more, no incentive to protect the forests,” Cruz points out.
But if, for example, the Ati tribe can be funded with dryers, they can sell whatever herbal plants they get from the mountains for a higher price, Cruz said. And if there are more farmers cultivating herbal plants, imported supplements can be replaced by local products. “Unless we protect ourselves, unless we protect our plants, they are just grass, they are just charcoal.”
Cruz lamented that while there are now widely used drugs developed from the country’s biodiversity, the government is not earning even a cent because American companies were the developers and manufacturers.
He revealed that Herbanext Laboratories, Inc. will be 25 years in 2025, but it is only last year that it realized a profit, apparently summing up the difficulties of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in scaling up and turning a profit.
Cruz cited the prohibitive cost of clinical studies (Phases 1 and 2) that cost around Php25 million, that’s for the meantime, he was only asking for concerned government agencies to help fund even just the Phase 1 clinical study of herbal plant extracts.
He said his company already research 30 plants and found five of them with potentials.
Cruz noted the US$100 billion global herbal health products market should be enough motivation for a big-time government approach for the country’s herbal industry that is still at its infancy. (/)