Of the tens of thousands of herbs in use in Thailand today, 10 have been selected as having the most potential for export, with a five-year road map for their development suggested.

They are aloe vera, turmeric, pueraria mirifica, mulberry, golden bush, malaccea, Asiatic pennywort, black pepper, cassumunar ginger and andrographis, according to research released by the Health Systems Research Institute (HSRI).

HSRI researcher Dr Jiradej Manosroi said their cosmetic characteristics included moisturising, anti-ageing, anti-wrinkling and whitening.

"All could be made into cosmetics for the global market," Jiradej said.

"With strong political will and proper support, the first Thai herb brands could soon be available on the world market, promising an impressive income," he said.

After that, two products could be released every year under the system suggested in the road map for HSRI research, he said.

Why cosmetics but not medicine or food supplements? "That's because of the law and regulatory limits in the global market," he said.

"Forget about pushing medicine or food supplements in the world market. The regulations are very strict, such as the need under recent changes for 30 years of trials before entering the European Union market," he explained.

"Exporting cosmetics is much easier," he said.

Another researcher, Dr Aranya Manosroi, a pharmacist and lecturer at Chiang Mai University's Faculty of Pharmacy, said the high potential was due to the long experience of Thais with herbs.

"We also have a certain level of readiness in the sense of research and information to commercialise herb products," she said.

The global herb trade is estimated to be worth Bt784 billion while Thai exports have notched up only Bt1 billion in 2006, according to Jiradej's research paper "The Development of Thai Medicinal Plant Products for worldwide market competition."

"Thailand imported four times as many herbal products than it exported in 2005. What's worse, we don't have even a single herb product from Thailand on the world market, despite their popularity domestically and the increasing interest of foreign customers," the report stated.

Scattering of both the research focus and the budget are the main problem, Jiradej said.

"Based on my 30 years of experience researching this field, we have tens of thousand of studies on various scales, from Bt1,000 to Bt1-million projects, done by thousands of researchers, with the result that we are still able to produce only 20 of a possible 2,000 herbal extracts. The rest is imported for local manufacture," he explained.

"It is a problem of neither research quality nor budget. The government invested Bt10 billion in herbal research in 2003, which may not be as much as private investment in the West, but it is big enough to do something," he said.

"What we need is a national direction and a proper system to run our research, leading to commercial products based on certain herbs with potential. That's why we selected the 10 herbs with the most potential for the road map," he said.

Clinical research is needed to put them to commercial use, he said.

"Herbal research has mostly been focused on finding active chemicals in those herbs, but it has not got as far as clinical research, the next step towards commercialisation," he said.

After laboratory research, clinical research is needed to ensure product quality and stability and to check for side-effects, and then efficient manufacturing, he explained.

"After success in the laboratory, we need to test them on animals and then on humans before launching them," he said.

Aranya added that biotechnology and nanotechnology could be great tools to ensure the stability and quality of Thai herb products.

"We can use nanotechnology to adjust the active chemicals in each herb at the atomic level, to control their characteristics during manufacture," she said.

The five-year road map (2007-2011) suggested by the HSRI also includes manufacturing and marketing ideas.

In the first two years of implementation of the road map, government agencies and academic institutions must focus on three things, creating systems to provide reliable standards for the products, adjusting related laws and regulations and selecting the target herbs, the researchers say.

After that the focus should shift to manufacture and packaging, as well as marketing, distribution and public relations. The follow-up process should begin in the second year, they say.

They suggest that organic domestic plantations without the use of chemicals should supply the raw materials.

"Cooperation among state authorities, academics and the private sector is the key to success," Jiradej said. "The research has been submitted to the HSRI, and we expect it will soon go to the authorities who will propose it to policy-makers," Aranya said.

Jiradej thinks the road map could give Thailand quite a fillip as a first step to putting local herbal brands on the international.

"The investment is high, I agree, but the return is also likely to be high. Take a look at the case of German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim. They made Bt8.5 billion from only one product they developed," he said.

Jiradej was referring to the well-known Chinese herb paekoei (Ginkgo biloba), from which the company extracted the active chemical, which it then produced under the Gincosan brand.

Kamol Sukin

The Nation