ABSTRACT
4This chapter focuses on the challenges and opportunities, which should be briefly discussed while considering herbal drug development. Quality control and the standardization of herbal extracts77 are important to protect the integrity of the herbal extracts for pharmaceutical quality. Several qualitative tests such as morphology, macroscopy, and microscopy have been used routinely for monitoring the quality of raw materials along with processed extracts during herbal drug development. Chemical evaluation of marker compounds and total fingerprint analysis are considered quantitative and semiquantitative measures, respectively, for monitoring the quality of several herbal drugs. Marker compounds suggest identification and quantitative measurement of known marker compounds in the raw material, processed extracts, and finished products using chromatographic techniques such as high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC), high-performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC), and gas chromatography (GC).
