Discover why & how Phytomed began

Posted: July 2021
Author: Phil Rasmussen |  M.Pharm., M.P.S., Dip. Herb. Med.; M.N.I.M.H.(UK),  F.N.Z.A.M.H. 
 

Why?

I grew up on the east coast of the North Island in New Zealand in Tokomaru Bay and Gisborne, a region with a strong Māori influence, and connection with the bush (Te Ngahere). Being in the bush filled me with a sense of adventure and awe, and helping my parents in the vege garden, was fun. I now know how lucky I was to have had these experiences in a relatively remote part of Aotearoa, from an early age.

After working in community and hospital Pharmacy for several years, and using a few medicinal herbs on myself, I came to the realisation that natural rather than drug-based solutions were often preferable for many health conditions. 

While studying at the School of Phytotherapy at Sussex in the U.K., I complemented my learning by growing herbs such as calendula, comfrey, chamomile, horseradish, burdock, marshmallow, echinacea purpurea, evening primrose and yarrow, at allotments in Bristol. These and other herbs I wildcrafted, using them to manufacture ointments and balms which I sold throughout the UK.

However, despite or perhaps because of being located on the opposite side of the world for many years, I began to develop my early interest in the medicinal properties and traditional uses of our own New Zealand native plants, and make and trial herbal tincture forms of several of these. Plants such as Mānuka and Kawakawa and Tanekaha, had more meaning and relevance to me than exotic sounding ones such as Pellitory of the Wall, or Ladies slipper.

I returned to New Zealand after 9 years of OE, and was shocked at the decline in the economic health and levels of unemployment and drug use apparent in the rural communities that I had been raised in. Recent research has revealed towns such as Kaitaia, Opotiki, Wairoa and Kawerau have some of New Zealand’s worst problems with methamphetamine addiction, with long term unemployment and under-employment being key contributory factors. There is an increasing need for more meaningful employment and work in many of our rural and provincial communities.

My decision to establish Phytomed was a culmination of the above experiences and a belief that New Zealand could do a lot better for our population and economy, by better recognising the connection of plants and nature to medicine and health. Being so dependent on importing herbs from cheap labour and poorer countries does not provide sustainability or an ethical model going forward. Underpinning all of this, was the conviction that New Zealand is one of the best growing countries in the world, and has an ideal environment to grow a wide range of different plant types in different geographical regions.

In August 2003, TIME magazine did a special issue (“Cool Kiwis”) on New Zealand, focussed on our changing economy. At the time our politicians and government policy advisers were strongly promoting a biotech-based future for our economy, including bioprospecting of our huge natural resources and searching for compounds that could lead to drug development. I was interviewed also for this story, but advocated instead for more funding into herbal medicine research, and a strategy aimed at development of natural medicines rather than drugs from our indigenous species, to enable more downstream and long-term benefits to Māori and other New Zealanders.

How:

It is absolutely important when manufacturing medicines to ensure these are made in a consistent and 100% reliable manner, and secondly that they contain sufficiently high levels of the phytochemicals we need them to have in order to treat our patients. A lot of work was therefore required before even thinking about making our first sale. I also wanted to be confident that what we produced, was of comparable or better quality to that which was already available to practitioners in New Zealand at the time.

I therefore began to experiment and make trial batches of a wide range of herbal extracts, using both tincturing (maceration) and percolation methods, and learning a lot about manufacturing and some of the many unique challenges that particular plants presented. In parallel with all this, was the growing and wildcrafting and seeking out and liaising with a wide range of growers and prospective growers, most of whom like myself were new to commercial herb growing. If I could get it grown here though I wanted to, for every product.

After a few years of trialling and making a lot of errors, I had determined suitable extraction procedures for the first 150 herbal liquid extracts that I launched the company with in 1998. These included 12 New Zealand native species, all of which I regarded as being sustainable, safe and efficacious enough to promote and educate around their use including as alternatives to endangered and at risk species imported from faraway places. And to produce products from for export hopefully, in the future.

Herbal medicine has suffered from adulteration or the incorrect species being used, and ensuring we were buying, growing or wildcrafting the correct species, was critical. I therefore had to seek out information and reputable sources from which to prepare detailed raw herb specifications including botanical descriptions, for each herb I intended to produce products from. From day one also, we used a botanist to verify every batch procured.

There were also the manufacturing instruction documents to write for each product, and their packing documents, and then documents to define and describe the various tests they would go through, before being released for sale. Preparation of these and initial SOP’s took at least a couple of years, then another several months making the first batches of each product. By September of 1998, we were ready to launch.

Deciding upon a suitable company name was an exercise that integrated my British training in which the term ‘Phytotherapy’ was utilised more than ‘Herbal’, with the term ‘Medicine’. This to me much more aptly describes preparations made from medicinal plants to treat illness than does the term ‘dietary supplements’. And thus ‘Phyto’ and ‘Med’ were joined, a logo, pricelist and business cards produced, and Phytomed’s identify was born. Our first issue of Phytonews, which accompanied the launch, contained a review of Mānuka the plant, and its medicinal properties.

Phytomed initially began at my home, where the warehouse and despatch was downstairs, the bulk herb store a container in the back yard, the milling shed located out the back with a Morris 1000 motor to run the herb mill, and a caravan for the one then two sales and everything else staff. Siobhan McCallion, Noeline Jonkers, Barbara Mitchell and Kevin Lin, were the first 4 staff members, and we worked together for many years. Things grew quickly though, and after 3 years we moved to purpose-built premises in Rosebank Road. After a lot more work and ongoing growth in sales, we achieved GMP certification after our first Ministry of Health audit, in 2007.

The Future:

The SARS-2 coronavirus and all its clever mutations over the past 18 months, has reminded us that we are still very much at the mercy of nature, and that drugs don’t always provide all the solutions we expect. The additional stressors of climate change, environmental contamination and increasing supply constraints for many consumer goods and medicinal plant raw materials, not to mention increasingly emerging concerns with antibiotic resistance, are likely to further shock humankind in the coming decades.

For New Zealand and companies such as Phytomed, the long game will need to ethically leverage New Zealand’s many unique strengths and quality attributes, to create sustainable industries which can boost export revenue, improve our peoples’ wellness, look after the environment, and respect the principles of Kaitiakitanga. Herbal Medicines made using locally grown herbs and processed locally into high value-added finished products, tick all these boxes for me.

Political and regulatory recognition of the valuable contributions that naturopaths and medical herbalists can make to the future health of New Zealanders, is also way overdue. We have a high level of expertise in the use of phytomedicines to help optimise health and overcome many illnesses. These skills and our training in nutrition and herb-drug interactions, and ability to take a more integrative and preventive approach to an individual’s health, makes us well suited to advise and educate, on self-care and wellness interventions.

As a company, Phytomed plans to remain contributory to these objectives and a better health care future for herbal practitioners and our patients, for a long time yet.