THE MARIANO Marcos State University has been given a P9.5 million fund by the Department of Science and Technology to develop herbal drugs.

The DOST’s Philippine Council for Health Research and Development issued the grant to the MMSU’s Tuklas Lunas Development Center to allow it to continue producing quality, safe, and effective herbal medicinal products derived from Philippine biodiversity.

“We have to aggressively advance the use of plant-based medicine as it offers less lethal side effects if compared to synthetic drugs,” MMSU President Shirley Agrupis said.

“Since the project involves IPs in Ilocos Norte, a new industry in the province can flourish where local farmers may provide the raw materials and process the manufacturing of herbal products,” she added.

MMSU said the grant includes a carry-over budget of almost P 2.2 million unexpended amount from last year.

The school has identified several plant extracts that have anti-inflammatory  attributes.

“With this, MMSU now aims to develop standardized, safe, and effective herbal products in prototype oral (tablet or capsule) and topical dosage (cream, ointment or gel) forms from the spray-dried extracts of the five IPs,” it added.

These prototypes will undergo clinical tests to ensure that the products will meet the regulatory requirements of the World Health Organization and the Food and Drug Administration on herbal medicines.

The university will partner with the experts of Pascual Laboratories, Inc. for the second component of the project which is “the chemical standardization of the raw materials produced and formulated dosage forms.”