Natural Products in Medicine: Historical and Modern Perspectives

The traditional and alternative therapeutic practices by using natural products serve as the standard therapeutic approach. The primary source of natural product-based new chemical entities (NCEs) originates from four natural groups, including plants, animals, microbial and minerals. Origin of herbal medicine follows traditional Chinese, Ayurveda, kampo, African, Korean and Egyptian medicine, explaining the ethnopharmacological application.  According to FDA-approved drugs, the integration of medications with modern medical practice is hindered by inadequate pharmacological assessment. Different modern strategies include genomics, metabolomics, big data, proteomics, computer-aided automation and artificial intelligence with multidisciplinary approaches that optimize therapeutic use of natural products. Moreover, this chapter delves into regulatory and ethical challenges, especially the protection of Intellectual property, equitable sharing, traditional knowledge, and universal standards of compliance. By integrating traditional and modern technologies, natural products serve as a promising avenue for drug development.