ABSTRACT
Herbal drugs have been used world wide, particularly in developing countries, to treat and reduce the suffering of humans and animals and to improve their productivity since antiquity. The development of synthetic drugs has greatly affected the usage of herbal drugs. The concept of validation was first proposed by the Food and Drug Administration in 1970. Qualification of critical equipment, process validation, and change control are particularly important in the production of herbal medicines with unknown therapeutically active constituents. Value addition can be carried out based on knowledge for the purpose of exporting value-added material rather than raw material. Validation of herbal drugs is beneficial in terms of developing economical, eco-friendly, easily accessible, effective, and safe drugs for enhancing health conditions and production. The value addition of herbal products can further be done by purification of extracts and isolation of single bioactive molecules.
