Philippine Daily Inquirer
Who would have thought that unassuming plants and herbs that grew in our backyard would be parlayed into a multi-million-peso industry one day? Clinical studies proving phytomedicines’ (or plant-based drugs) efficacy and growing consumer trust and patronage have created a huge market for such natural-based remedies. As a result, big pharmaceutical companies in the Philippines have begun to aggressively develop new products from indigenous sources.
Sales figures, from Lagundi-based cough medicines alone, rose from P38 million in 2004 to an astounding P500 million in October 2011. Pascual Laboratories (PascualLab), the first pharmaceutical company to develop and market the first licensed herbal medicine in the country, accounts for 90 percent of this figure thanks to its Ascof Lagundi brand, the most successful phytomedicine in the Philippines.
Ascof was the first herbal medicine licensed by the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development and the Department of Science and Technology. It was introduced by PascualLab in 1996 in collaboration with the National Integrated Research Program of Medicinal Plants, the government institution that undertakes research on herbal plants for medicinal purposes.
Today, PascualLab has its own Herbal R&D and Product & Process Development groups which collaborate with independent medical and research institutions in the country to continuously improve its products. Innovations that the company has implemented in over two decades have resulted in the Ascof that it is today—having higher quality than products produced using an older technology.
The brand has since then become synonymous to safe and natural healing that is anchored on scientific foundation, all-natural ingredients and PascualLab’s heritage that is respected by consumers and the industry as a whole.
The company gives consumers the assurance that only organically grown and 100-percent natural lagundi leaves are used in the formulation of Ascof, making it the superior brand in the market. It has an all-organic, award-winning 40-hectare Leoni Agri Corp. plantation in Nueva Ecija that is free of all pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers and other chemicals. It is a vast herbal repository where the best and high quality medicinal plant varieties are nurtured. Lagundi leaves used in Ascof come from here, carefully processed before being packaged into capsule, tablet and syrup forms.
But in the midst of all the buzz on phytomedicines, Ascof should not be confused with herbal or food supplements. It is categorized as a medicine developed through years of scientific research and validated by clinical trials. Its HMR-01 registration number shows that Ascof is the first plant-based medicine registered under the Food and Drug Administration.
Trusting Ascof is an easy decision for Filipino households to make because it has proven useful in solving their loved ones’ cough problems, keeping them safe from further health risks.
