Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Assessment of the State of Herbal Medicines Research and Development in Nigeria

Kanayo P Osemene¹ , Mathew O Ilori², Anthony A Elujoba³

¹Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacy Administration; ²Technology Planning and Development Unit; ³Department of Pharmacognosy, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

For correspondence:- Kanayo Osemene Email: osemenekanayo@yahoo.com Tel:+2348037161268

Received: 21 November 2011 Accepted: 17 May 2012 Published: 16 August 2012

Citation: Osemene KP, Ilori MO, Elujoba AA. Assessment of the State of Herbal Medicines Research and Development in Nigeria. Trop J Pharm Res 2012; 11(4):645-650 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v11i4.16

© 2012 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To examine the state of herbal medicines research and development (R&D) outputs in universities, research institutes and pharmaceutical manufacturing firms in Nigeria.

Methods: Questionnaires were administered to core researchers in the above-mentioned research organizations using purposive and convenient sampling technique. The questionnaire elicited vital information on researcher’s area of specialization, academic qualifications, state of research facilities and approach to herbal medicines R&D by the organization. Data were analyzed using appropriate statistical tools.

Results: The study revealed that the researchers were highly qualified individuals who specialized in eight distinct areas. Research facilities were in varying degrees of deterioration. Major R&D activities were incremental or modification of products/process (58 %), continuous improvement of R&D programs (23 %), radical process/product development (20 %), and creative (11 %) and duplicative (7 %) efforts. Strategies to enhance herbal medicine R&D were increased funding (36.3 %), training of researchers (28.1 %), improvement in R&D infrastructure (18.6 %) and fostering public-private partnership (17 %).

Conclusion: Herbal medicines R&D is not fully developed in Nigeria due to a myriad of fundamental challenges facing the key players.

Keywords: Research and development, Herbal medicine, Innovation, Pharmaceutical firms