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ensure accuracy. CHAPTER 9 SCREENING PLANTS FOR NEW MEDICINES
Research Professor of Pharmacognosy, Program for Collaborative
Research in the Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Illinois
at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois The U.S. pharmaceutical industry
spent a record $4.1 billion on research and development in 1985,
an increase of 11.6% from 1984 (Anonymous, 1986). In the same
year, the American consumer purchased in excess of $8 billion in
community pharmacies for prescriptions whose active constituents
are still extracted from higher plants (Farnsworth and Soejarto,
1985). For the past 25 years, 25% of all prescriptions dispensed
from community pharmacies in the United States contained active
principles that are still extracted from higher plants, and this
percentage has not varied more than 1.0% during that period
(Farnsworth a