Securing the Future of Complementary Medicines Manufacturing in Australia: A Strategic Business Case

The $6 billion per annum complementary medicines manufacturing industry stands at a crucial crossroads: maintain the status quo or invest in catalysing industry growth by capturing greater market share of the rapidly expanding global market. Through extensive research, analysis and consultation this report identifies various opportunities and challenges facing the industry and provides an evidence-based set of recommendations and associated business case. This report presents recommendations to government, proposing a co-investment model that has the potential to support Australian manufacturers to triple industry revenues by 2032. The aim will be achieved through capturing a greater proportion of the global complementary medicine market, fostering a skilled manufacturing workforce, protecting sovereignty of supply and manufacture, and fuelling job growth across Australia

Challenges in integrating herbal medicine in healthcare systems

In this perspective some of the challenges facing the integration of herbal medicine in the healthcare system are described. Such challenges include the need to understand the chemical nature of complex herbal products and their formulation for human therapeutic use, the importance of translation of basic scientific research to human clinical safety and efficacy, provision of a framework for obtaining the evidence required for validation of traditional herbal medicinal products and defining a regulatory system which allows adequate research funding and protection of resulting intellectual property. Requirements for developing standard operating procedures for clinical trials on herbal medicines are described