A don and Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Lagos, Grace Eigbibhalu Ukpo, has advocated interdisciplinary collaboration between indigenous pharmaceutical companies with Pharmacy Schools in the country to take herbal products from the laboratories to the market in a standardised form.
This is as she noted that such interdisciplinary collaboration had become imperative to look at the formulations of herbal products more closely, as a matter of urgency, to achieve this noble task.
This was part of the thrusts of the eight inaugural lecture of the university for the 2021/2022 academic session, with the theme: Drug Discovery: “Drudgery of a Combatant Pharmaceutical Chemist.”
In her treaties, Ukpo, whose Ph.D. research centered on Studies on Some Biopharmaceutical and Metabolic Actions of Ciprofloxacin,” which set her on a path in the field of Chemistry that informed her evolution into a Scientific Combatant, however, stated that while some herbal drugs may not be toxic, they may not be bioavailable for therapeutic action.
According to her, research findings show that most people have resorted to the use of herbal preparations in the treatment of their ailments, which at times, have resulted in toxicity and treatment failure that has become a great concern to medical doctors.
