Seidl Peter R
Escola de Química, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 21949-900, Brazil.
An Acad Bras Cienc. 2002 Mar;74(1):145-50. doi: 10.1590/s0001-37652002000100011.
The use of products extracted from plants for medicinal purposes can be traced to the beginnings of civilization and up until the end of the nineteenth century natural products were the principal source of medicines. Since then their relative importance has oscillated according to the strategies of large pharmaceutical companies. Now that these strategies are changing, there are new opportunities for countries like Brazil, in which a large proportion of the world's biodiversity is located. There are, however, new circumstances that must be taken into consideration: material must be collected by groups which are formally authorized to do so and under the conditions of the Convention of Biological Diversity, the discovery process is being successively outsourced to smaller specialized firms and there is a growing integration with producers of cosmetics and phytomedicines.
将植物提取物用于药用可追溯到文明起源之时，直至19世纪末，天然产物一直是药物的主要来源。从那时起，其相对重要性随着大型制药公司的战略而波动。如今这些战略正在改变，像巴西这样拥有世界上很大一部分生物多样性的国家迎来了新机遇。然而，有一些新情况必须予以考虑：材料必须由正式授权的团体按照《生物多样性公约》的条件进行采集，发现过程正陆续外包给规模较小的专业公司，并且与化妆品和植物药生产商的整合也在不断加强。
