Establishment of Content Standards for Herbal Medicines through Simultaneous Assay of Major Active Components by HPLC

For quality evaluation of herbal medicines, we studied content standard of herbal medicines. Each herbal medicine has different by origin and growing district and so on. We set up the contents standard of marker substance in each herbal medicine by simultaneous analysis using HPLC-DAD. Each effective marker substance was selected by identification of efficacy study. We analyzed for eight herbal medicines (Glycyrrizae radix, Scutellariae radix, Schisandrae fructus, Evodiae fructus, Epimedii herba, Sophorae radix, Angelicae gigantis radix, Paeoniae radix). Each analysis method for herbal medicines was certified by validation study. The suggested content standards through the result of analysis were as followed; Glycyrrizae radix (not less than glycyrrhizin 2.5%, liquiritin 1.0%), Scutellariae radix (not less than the sum of baicalin, baicalein and wogonin 10.0%), Schisandrae fructus (not less than sum of schizandrin, gomisin A and gomisin N 0.7%), Evodiae fructus (not less than the sum of evodiamine and rutaecarpine 0.1%), Epimedii herba (not less than Icariin 0.3%), Sophorae radix (not less than the sum of matrine and oxymatrine 1.0%), Angelicae gigantis radix [not less than the sum of total decursin(decursin and decursinol angelate) and nodakenin 6.0%], Paeoniae radix (not less than the sum of paeoniflorin and albiflorin 2.3%). The research was used to set up the contents standards of herbal medicines in Korean Pharmacopoeia 9th(’07.12.). We anticipate that this application will prevent the import of poor materials, thus leading to enhanced credibility of herbal medicines.