Himalaya Healthcare to cultivate endangered plants to develop new drugs

By Economic Times on April 15,2010


NEW DELHI: Herbal drugs and personal care product maker Himalaya Healthcare plans to cultivate endangered plants to develop new drugs, a company
executive said.

Many useful herbs which were abundantly available in the past are in danger of getting extinctand the company aims to nurture them to sustain its supply of raw material. Privately ownedHimalaya Healthcare, best known for its livertonic syrup Liv-52 is working on a dozen herbs and orchids found in India's North Eastern states.

"If we need to survive in the long term we need to protect our herbs, our basic feed," Ravi Prasad, deputy chairman of the holding company that runs Himalaya Healthcare said.
The North Eastern states in the himalayan belt is rich in biodiversity with many orchid and herb species having medicinal usage. Sikkim alone has an estimated 450 orchid species, manyof them endangered.

The Bangalore-based company is working with NGOs, universities, government institutes and medicinal plant boards to identify more plants with medicinal usage and promote large scale cultivation. It sources a quarter of its raw materials from contract farmers which it expects to grow to 35-40% next year.

Himalaya generates almost half of its revenues estimated to be more than Rs 1,000 crore from exports. It also has over 125 ex-clusive Himalaya retail stores. Globally, it also supplies range of 200 products to retail players such as Carrefour, Spinny's, Vitamin Shoppe, Guardian andWatsons.