North Carolina experts take on US medicinal products market

A conference to discuss how North Carolina's agricultural communities can tap into the $40 -50 billion US natural medicinal products market is taking place at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill today.

Several hundred experts are expected at the daylong meeting, the first of its kind for the state and among the first in the country. Distinguished speakers at the North Carolina Summit on Natural Medicinal Products will include Valeria L. Lee, president of the GoldenLEAF Foundation, Dr Jeffrey L. Houpt, vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the UNC School of Medicine, and Dr James Oblinger, dean of the North Carolina State University School of Agriculture & Life Sciences.

"We'll be discussing how to develop and market natural medicinal products that are marketable and at the same time safe and effective,"​ said Dr John Longenecker, director of UNC's Institute of Nutrition and summit chair. "GoldenLEAF: Long-term Economic Advancement Foundation, which received a large share of the state's part of the tobacco settlement, is promoting economic programmes that farming communities can use to supplement or replace income previously derived from tobacco production," he said.

"We see our role as helping them succeed in this effort by combining sound economics, agricultural and medical science to ensure any products we promote will not only be economically feasible but also clinically important for public health,"​ he said.

Health experts from the UNC schools of public health and medicine and agricultural specialists from North Carolina State University, which maintains experimental projects designed to determine the most efficient ways of growing medicinal herbs, will also attend.

"There are quite a few of such plants that grow naturally in North Carolina, which gives us a distinct advantage over other producers around the world,"​ he said. "Jobs these researchers have set for themselves include undertaking surveys to determine these plants' importance to the market, their potential for North Carolina agriculture and their efficacy and safety."​

The first session is to include talks on the history, production and marketing of medicinal herbs, the business success of Vermont-based Gaia Herbs and biotechnology, agriculture and health.

Talks at the second morning session will cover successful natural product businesses in North Carolina, controlled trials of botanical effectiveness and evaluating the agricultural potential of N.C. herbs. Afternoon work sessions will focus on expanding production and marketing of the state's natural medicinal products; health, safety and effectiveness issues; and consumer and industry factors related to boosting business.

"We plan to draft a consensus statement, hopefully by the end of the day, in which we as health professionals stress the need for more information about the safety and effectiveness of these products,"​ said co-chair Dr Lenore Arab, professor of epidemiology and nutrition in public health and medicine at UNC.

"There are so many on the market, and there's no research to support claims being made for many of them. Among our goals are to conduct clinical trials to find out which ones really work and are safe for people to take."​

The Consortium of Natural Medicine and Public Health is a voluntary group of people from diverse backgrounds in agriculture, health and industry, Longenecker said. Begun under the auspices of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, the UNC Institute of Nutrition and the N.C. Department of Agriculture, it is dedicated to developing natural medicinal products responsibly for North Carolina and will work with the GoldenLEAF Foundation.