Analysis of Components of Herbal Preparations

Under the guidance of medical theory, herbal preparations are based on prescriptions and herbal tablets as raw materials, which are extracted, separated, and purified to obtain semi-finished products then processed by pharmacological methods to make various dosage forms of medicines. According to the nature of raw materials, herbal preparations can be divided into herbal single-component preparations with a clear chemical structure, herbal active part preparations with a clear quantitative range of active ingredients, and herbal compound extract preparations after herbal compound extraction. Among them, herbal active part formulations and herbal compound extract formulations are extremely complex, and their efficacy is often the result of the synergistic effect of multiple ingredients.

Lifeasible helps you to identify the main groups of active ingredients in herbal preparations that are closely related to their efficacy by identifying, checking, and measuring the content of herbal preparations. You can use this as a basis for optimizing your herbal formulation process and building a quality assessment system, which is one of the key scientific issues to be addressed in the design and quality control of herbal formulations.

Content of analysis

• Identification of herbal preparations

Identifying herbal preparations is the first step in the quality inspection of herbal preparations and is a prerequisite for assessing their quality. We will judge the authenticity of herbal preparations through trait identification, microscopic identification, physicochemical identification, and biological identification based on the histological characteristics, biological characteristics, and physicochemical characteristics of the chemical components contained in the herbal medicine.

• Examination of herbal preparations

We can carry out routine substance examination, harmful substance examination (endogenous harmful substance examination and exogenous harmful substance examination), general rules of preparation examination, etc. The test results can be used to evaluate the safety of the clinical use of drugs. The routine substance tests include moisture, total ash, and acid-insoluble ash. Endogenous harmful substances refer to harmful substances contained in the herbal medicine itself; for example, we can provide the examination of bis-ester type alkaloids - aconitine, etc. Formulation general inspection is our evaluation of the quality of the drug based on the basic properties of the preparation to ensure the stability of the preparation. The inspection items and contents are related to the dosage form.

• Determination of the content of herbal preparations

We can analyze the content of one or more active, toxic, or indicator ingredients in herbal preparations to help you assess the quality of your herbal preparations. Because the active ingredients of some herbal preparations are not yet well known and the determination of the content of the active ingredients is not yet universally applicable, we evaluate the quality of some herbal preparations by the content of the active parts or total components, such as the determination of total flavonoids, total alkaloids, volatile oils, total saponins, total nitrogen, etc.

Analytical methods and principles

We use modern analytical methods, including titrimetric, gravimetric, spectroscopic, chromatographic, and bioassay methods, to serve you. However, you should be aware that each method has its principles, scope of application, etc. If a specific herbal sample is to be evaluated at the same time, the analytical method to be used to assess its quality will depend on the characteristics of the herbal preparation. The chemical composition of herbs is complex,; even single herbs contain various components, not to mention compound preparations made up of several herbs. Furthermore, certain chemical components can interact with each other during the preparation of compounded formulations and preparations, resulting in significant changes in the content of the original chemical components or the creation of new ones, making quality analysis more difficult.

Therefore, you cannot specify a specific analytical method for this service. But you don't have to worry; we have built our quality analysis system to take into account the non-single nature of active ingredients in herbal preparations, especially the multi-component, multi-level, and multi-target effects of herbal extracts and herbal compound preparations. Lifeasible provides a unique analytical solution for each sample, combining the determination of components with the evaluation of the overall fingerprinting/characterization to provide comprehensive, objective, and scientific results and quality assessment of your herbal preparations. Please feel free to contact us for your bespoke solution.

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