National University of Pharmacy, Ukraine
Title: Biopharmaceutical differences of herbal drugs and their phytosimilars
Biography:
Kateryna Zupanets as a clinical pharmacist completed her PhD at the age of 27 years from National University of Pharmacy (Kharkiv, Ukraine) and last year she finished her post-doctoral studies at Clinical and Diagnostics Center of the National University of Pharmacy. She is the author of more than 50 papers in reputed journals (6 articles for SCOPUS journals). Dr. Zupanets has been working as a Co-Investigator in more than 50 trials of Bioequivalence studies and Phase I (Clinical and Diagnostics Center of the National University of Pharmacy).
In the epoch of antibiotic resistance and drug-dependent side effects the herbal drugs become more and more popular. According to the evidence level (EPOS 2012) herbal drugs hold Ib rate with the corresponding Grade A recommendation. The present parameters are the same as for Paracetamol. This fact is extremely reliable cause in terms of their potential herbal drugs can definitely be used to treat colds. As far as herbal medicines are as old as human kind they are well-studied and form the basis of modern pharmaceutics. Despite a huge variety of plant-based medicines and healing activities of natural substances they are still yielding surprising insights. For example, anti-inflammatory activity is not determined by one or other compound alone, it’s a result of correct composition. But it doesn’t mean that all herbal drugs with the similar content possess the same pharmacological activity. According to our in-depth studies of herbal medicine pharmacological activities we came up with an idea that there are no generics among herbal drugs. When studying a number of plant-based medicines such as novel dry extract BNO 1011 (Sinupret® extract), BNO 1045 (Canephron® N), micronized purified flavonoid fraction (Detralex®), significant biopharmaceutical differences were found in comparison with their copies, more precisely with phytosimilars. Although different manufactures can copy the ingredients and doses of raw material of well-known brands but it doesn’t maintain the same safety and efficacy. We have found out that phytoneering herbal drugs prove to be as effective as standard therapy due to the unique high-tech approach. Thus, standardized herbal drugs with scientifically determined efficacy are setting new reliable benchmarks which may help to treat diseases in a targeted and effective fashion.