AHP, Bent Creek Form Botanical Reference Partnership

ASHEVILLE, N.C.The American Herbal Pharmacopoeia (AHP), Bent Creek Institute Inc., and Bent Creek Germplasm Repository at The North Carolina Arboretum formed a botanical reference material supply partnership. In the United States, botanical supply chain stakeholdersfrom commercial growers to natural products brands in foods, supplements and body care productsmust authenticate the correct botanical identity of their raw ingredients. This need has become increasingly urgent as regulatory and market pressures to comply with federal GMPs (good manufacturing practices) have combined. Under 21 CFR 111, dietary supplement manufacturers must perform botanical identity testing on inbound raw material lots 100 percent of the time.

The new supply partnership between AHP and Bent Creek is designed to establish the Gold Standard in botanical reference materials (BRMs) and promote their use throughout the natural products industry. This partnership will assure that GMP-compliant stakeholders have access to a wide variety of BRMs backed by the combined medicinal plant and botanical expertise of AHP and Bent Creek, and by traceable and reproducible botanical vouchers at Bent Creek Germplasm Repository.

The AHP-Bent Creek BRM supply service will begin July 1, 2012, and will be managed by the Bent Creek Germplasm Repository in affiliation with Bent Creek Institute and supervised by Joe-Ann McCoy, Ph.D., medicinal plant physiologist and microscopy researcher. BRMs bearing the AHP-Verified" seal will be used in botanical identity testing services offered through the newly formed US Botanical Safety Laboratory (USBSL), providing USBSL clients the authoritative imprimatur of AHP on its certificates of analysis.