Chemical marker compounds and their essential role in quality control of herbal medicines

Many countries are registering their standardized herbal drugs with proven clinical efficacy, safety and as dietary supplements. But India is unable to exploit the World market due to unsatisfactory system of quality control which necessitates the establishment of standards for herbal single drugs and compound formulations. In order to ensure international community to use AYUSH drugs with confidence and without compunction, developing acceptable quality control standards of herbal medicines aims to ensure their consistency, safety and efficacy with good manufacturing practices is very much essential. Study of chemical markers is applicable to many research areas, including authentication of genuine species, search for new resources or substitutes of raw materials, optimization of extraction and purification methods, structure elucidation and purity determination. Systematic investigations using chemical markers may lead to discoveries and development of new drugs.