The big industry and regulation stories of 2012
Botanical futures
About 1500 botanical dossiers have been placed in the ‘on hold’ folder since September 2010, while the EU’s various organs try and determine what kind of data is applicable to back their proposed health links.
The discussions are ongoing but the EU’s botanical crossroads shows no signs of being resolved easily or quickly and is being complicated by the now-live EU Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive (THMPD), which offers another route to market for the same herbal extracts in many cases.
“It is difficult to predict what will happen,” said Patrick Coppens, secretary general of the European Responsible Nutrition Alliance (ERNA) and the European Botanical Forum (EBF).
“There are two fundamental routes – continue with the current procedures which will almost certainly remove almost all botanical indication claims, or consider other actions to deal with botanicals. We support a rethink and suspect EU member states will too.”
2013 promises to reveal much for the botanicals sector...