title: [Alkaloids and industry today].
abstract: The importance of alkaloids and heterosides extracted from plants is clearly established. A specialised industry makes them available to drug companies by means of technological processes which now make a wide range of extractions possible. Due to the large investments in equipment and raw materials, the procedures and processes must be optimised so that each extraction corresponds to a specific procedure dictated by a large number of parameters. Competitivity is only obtained at this cost. The raw material is the major limitation: because of the variability of drugs and because of economic factors which include the risk of falsifications. The large sums of money invested mean that a greater financial support, from outside of the company, will probably be necessary in the future, which is likely to fragilise the company.
authors.forename: P E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Fouché
mesh_terms: D000470:Alkaloids / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D002617:Chemical Industry / Q000191:economics / Q000639:trends*; D004345:Drug Industry; D005602:France
chemical_list: D000470:Alkaloids
vernacular_title: Alcaloïdes et industrie, aujourd'hui.