The developing countries need to focus on promoting research in medicinal plants so as to generate huge financial resources, said Minister In-charge for Science and Technology Professor Atta-ur-Rahman.
He said one third of the world's population relies on herbal remedies for primary healthcare and the global annual sale of botanicals is over $ 70 billion.
These two statistics reflect the importance of medicinal plants in health and economy.
Professor Atta-ur-Rahman, who is also co-ordinator general, Comstech said while addressing an international conference here on Friday.
The Conference was organised by International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) on "bio-diversity and national products: chemistry and medical applications".
The minister said developing countries which are rich in medicinal plants should focus on fostering research in this area, leading to manufacture and commercialisation of new medicines from these plants.
Dr Atta-ur-Rehman, who was among the fifteen scientists and intellectuals from all over the world invited to deliver lecture at the conference presented some results of his recent work on marine and terrestrial organisms and microbial transformations.
He said access to reliable ethnomedicinal knowledge combined with modern tools of research are changing both the pace and scope of natural product chemistry.
These new approaches include rapid dereplication techniques, use of hyphenated techniques such as LC-MS, LC-NMR, etc, high-throughput screening protocols and effective use of modern spectroscopic techniques.
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