MIRACULOUS THERAPEUTIC EFFECTS OF HERBAL DRUGS USING NOVEL DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEMS

Abstract

Plants are nature’s remedies and have been used by human beings on earth since ancient times for food and medicine. Today there are global movements towards finding of herbal medicaments in plants on lab scale and after successive preclinical and clinical trial to bring them in market via a suitable drug delivery system for mankind. The basic thought behind it is treatment of each disease is hidden in nature. However, delivery of herbal drugs also requires modifications with the purpose to achieve sustained release, to increase patient compliance etc. Previously herbal drugs could not attract scientists towards the development of novel drug delivery systems due to processing, standardizing, extracting and identification difficulties. But now days with the advancement in the technology, novel drug delivery systems (NDDS) opens the door towards the development of herbal drug delivery systems. Novel drug delivery technologies have gained the importance to achieve modified delivery of herbal drugs thereby increasing the therapeutic value as well as reducing toxicity. For last one decade many novel carriers such as liposomes, nanoparticles, phytosomes and implants have been reported for successful modified delivery of various herbal drugs. The objective of this review article is to summarize various novel drug delivery technologies which have been developed for delivery of herbal drugs, to achieve better therapeutic response.