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Drug Authentication
In the last few decades, investigation of herbal drugs has become an important area in pre-clinical, clinical and pharmaceutical research. We, at Agharkar Research Institute, Pune, provide a facility for authentication and voucher deposition of botanical drug samples. This facility is offered at nominal charges for academic purposes to researchers, pharmacy and ayurvedic colleges, clinical research units and pharmaceutical companies. Currently, as part of Good Laboratory Practices (GLP), peer-reviewed journals expect authentication as well as a voucher number in manuscripts for herbal samples used in the studies.
To identify unknown samples, taxonomical tools for complete herbarium samples and pharmacognostic tools for plant parts are used. The steps involved in authentication are organoleptic, taxonomic, macroscopic and microscopic studies, powder analysis and in some cases, a thin layer chromatography study for confirmation. The authenticated sample is kept in the archives for a year only.
The following guidelines are suggested for availing of the authentication facility of crude drugs:
The sample must be free from foreign materials and infection.
As far as possible, the sample should be mounted on the herbarium sheet with the flowering or fruiting part.
For plant part authentication, a dry sample (plant part or sliced form) of≥100 g is required.
Documentation of scientific and local name if known, sample size, collector’s name, name of the institution, date of collection, location (Global Positioning System can record altitude, latitude), status (vegetative/flowering/fruiting), and any special features as on fresh samples (colour, typical odour, exudations) may help in authentication.
Data to be furnished along with market sample, market name, date and name of purchaser.
This service is exclusively available on request for academic purposes and internal use only.
Contact E-mail: crudedrug@aripune.org
Please click here to download the datasheet for drug authentication
Authentication charges for a commercial organisation are Rs. 3000/- + 18% GST = Rs. 3540/sample
