Provisional Biopharmaceutical Classification of Some Common Herbs Used in Western Medicine

The aim of this study was to classify some markers of common herbs used in Western medicine according to the Biopharmaceutical Classification System (BCS). The BCS is a scientific approach to classify drug substances based upon their intestinal permeability and their solubility, at the highest single dose used, within the physiologically relevant pH ranges. Known marker components of twelve herbs were chosen from the USP Dietary Supplement Compendium Monographs. Different BCS parameters such as intestinal permeability (Peff) and solubility (Cs) were predicted using the ADMET Predictor, which is a software program to estimate biopharmaceutical relevant molecular descriptors. The dose number (D0) was calculated when information from the literature was available to identify an upper dose for individual markers. In these cases the herbs were classified according to the traditional BCS parameters using Peff and D0. When no upper dose could be determined, then the amount of a marker that is just soluble in 250 ...