Drug preparation

A drug supplier (grower and collector of medicinal plants) delivers his goods to the phytopharmaceutical industry and drug dealers in the form of the whole drug, i.e. the plant or plant part is not made smaller after harvesting, but usually after drying. The drug is then packaged in suitable shipping containers, usually in bags. This means that the raw materials supplied in such a way are processed on the way to becoming a medicine. In the simplest case, they will only be cleaned, then cut or powdered, and used in this form to prepare a tea infusion or to manufacture tablets or capsules. Most, however, the drug undergoes much more technically complex processes for making an herbal drug namely when the drug is extracted. Here the ingredients of the drug are removed from its packaging (plant cell) and turned into a finished drug in a processable form. Extraction gains enrichment in the ingredients achieved and the undesirable impurities such as chlorophyll, fibre and proteins are mostly left behind. To clearly distinguish the quantitative relation between the drug and drug preparation to make clear, a so-called drug-extract ratio is specified (DEV) for an extract.