Exploitation of brazilian biodiversity as a source of active plant pharmaceutical ingredients (APPIs): challenges for the national pharmaceutical industry

• Autor(a) principal: Meirelles, Gabriela
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Ruppelt, Bettina Monika
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Fitos
• Texto Completo: https://revistafitos.far.fiocruz.br/index.php/revista-fitos/article/view/1440
• topic: Biodiversidade; Inovação; Indústria farmacêutica; Insumos farmacêuticos; Ativos vegetais; Biodiversity; Innovation; Pharmaceutic industry; Pharmaceutical ingredients; Plant actives

Although Brazil is a megabiodiverse country, its exploitation in favor of drug development is still low. The objective of this work is to present and analyze the main challenges of the national pharmaceutical industry regarding the conscious exploitation of native biodiversity as a source of active pharmaceutical plant ingredients (APPI). A narrative description was conducted with data collected in the main databases and in official documents until October 2021. The results showed that the 341 herbal medicines registered at ANVISA, comprise 88 plant species, only 20% are native and that there was a loss of scientific-biological knowledge about the native species due to successive economic cycles and that the Brazilian pharmaceutical industry, characterized by the production of medicines, import of APIs and low investments in RD&I, needs to change this profile. Based on the analyzed works, it is possible to conclude that Brazil must assume the production of APIs and overcome the lag in investments and innovation in this area, and that the country has the potential to receive investments for the production of IFAVs on condition of promoting policies that favor innovation, inserting green technologies, protecting the intellectual property of inventors and guaranteeing legal certainty for investors and/or researchers.