Even in a clinical setting, if we try to ask a colleague/friend of ours what ethnobotany is, we will hardly get a clear and comprehensive answer. It is, in fact, a still little known and widespread scientific discipline, which deals with studying the characteristics of plants and their potential effects on humans.
The prefix “ethno” refers to the fact that the knowledge of plants and their beneficial properties is generally limited and different for the various ethnic groups and geographical areas. In particular, in South America, and specifically in the Amazon area, this discipline has always had great popularity among local populations.
Compared to other geographical areas, in Latin America this ethnobotanical knowledge has generally been handed down only orally. The fact that scientific research has taken an interest in these aspects in recent decades is very important in this sense, because it has allowed a series of forms of knowledge to be better known and appreciated all over the world.
About twenty years ago, our company, Napo Therapeutics, decided to deepen its ethnobotanical research on a plant, the Chroton Lechleri, which grows spontaneously in a specific area of the Peruvian Amazon, in an area crossed by the Napo River (from which is the name of our company). This plant is very well known by the indigenous population, who have always used it as a remedy for gastrointestinal problems, respiratory and skin infections and also for the treatment of superficial wounds.
The active ingredient of Chroton is extracted from the sap of these plants and has a characteristic red colour, thanks to which it is called “sangre de drago” by the locals. Napo therapeutics has therefore decided to investigate, through a series of scientific studies, the clinical value of this active principle, identifying a great therapeutic potential in the area of gastrointestinal pathologies. The drug derived from the extraction and purification of “sangre de drago” has in fact been approved as a prescription drug by the US Food & Drug Administration for the treatment of gastrointestinal disorders related to the intake of antiretroviral drugs in patients with HIV.
Currently, in Europe, on the basis of a series of preliminary data, we have been designated by the EMA as an “orphan drug” for the treatment of Short Bowel Syndrome (SBS). It is a rare but extremely severe disease. Affected patients (adults and children) have a surgical reduction of the length of the intestine due to various causes (oncological, inflammatory, vascular, congenital). This reduction (known, precisely, as “short intestine”) reduces the possibility of having normal digestion and absorption of nutrients and liquids. Basically, in the best of cases, these people are forced to a very specific diet, which allows them to take on the main nutrients, but in most cases they are forced to resort to artificial nutrition (via intravenous infusion), without which they could not survive.
Beyond the scientific aspects related to the potential treatment of such serious and disabling pathologies, from the outset our company wanted the collection of the active ingredient to be sustainable and, if possible, also advantageous for the locals. In fact, it is a geographical area characterized by small, isolated villages with serious problems of communication and the exchange of economic resources. We have thus created small communities of workers, who collaborate in all phases of the initial processing of the active ingredient, so as to be able to enter a continuous working cycle.
Furthermore, for each specimen used for the extraction of the active principle, another two or three are planted, so as to limit the environmental and ecological impact. In short, it is an eco-sustainable initiative, which – hopefully – can also be implemented in the future by other pharmaceutical companies, according to the maxim of the philosopher Michel de Montaigne: “If certain facts seem extraordinary to us, this is the result of our ignorance of nature, not of the essence of nature.”
