Out of the 248 thousand species of plants existing in the world, only a small percentage has been studied. Amazonia, the Andes, Borneo, India, China, the Philippines and Africa: this is where the huge unexplored pharmacy created by Mother Nature is to be found to a great
extent...

The market of natural products, on an internat ional level, is in a phase of ext raordinary expansion. Among the causes, the boom in the United States’ market , projected beyond US$ 4 milliards in 2000, and the emergence of new categor ies of natural substances which are rapidly and fundamentally changing our idea of health and diseases...