Recent advances of novel technologies for quality consistency assessment of natural herbal medicines and preparations

Quality consistency is one of the basic attributes of medicines, but it is also a difficult problem that natural medicines and their preparations must face. The complex chemical composition and comprehensive pharmacological action of natural medicines make it difficult to simply apply the commonly used evaluation methods in chemical drugs. It is thus urgent to explore the novel evaluation methods suitable for the characteristics of natural medicines. With the rapid development of analytical techniques and the deepening understanding of the quality of natural herbs, increasing numbers of researchers have proposed many new ideas and technologies. This review mainly focuses on the basic principles, technical characteristics and application examples of the chemical evaluation, biological evaluation methods and their combination in quality consistency evaluation of natural herbs. On the bases of chemical evaluation and clinical efficacy, new methods reflecting their pharmacodynamic mechanism and safety characteristics will be developed, and gradually towards accurate quality control, to achieve the goal of quality consistency. We hope that this manuscript can provide new ideas and technical references for the quality consistency of natural drugs and their preparations, thus better guarantee their clinical efficacy and safety, and better promote industrial development.