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What is Remedy Bank? – by Jack Hendricks, Belgium
Remedy Bank is to evolve into an exhaus- tive collection of certified homeopathic raw materials and stocks for the prepara- tion of homeopathic medicinal products.
What exactly is meant by homeopathic raw materials?
Homeopathic raw materials are materials from which stocks are made. Stocks are those sub- stances from which homeopathic dilutions are made. They are also called homeopathic start- ing materials. Some homeopathic raw materials are themselves used as a starting material: for example mother tincture (starting material) from a plant or animal (raw material).
Stocks can be chemical materials or mixtures (Natrium muriaticum, Petroleum, Chininum, ... ), mother tinctures from plants or animals (Arnica Montana, Pulsatilla pratensis, Apis mel- lifica, ...), tissues, secretions or toxines from plants, animals and human cell culture (Opium, Sepia, Lac Humanum, Lachesis, ...) including pathogens, such as nosodes (Tuberculinum, Scirinum, ...).
Homeopathic raw materials and stocks need to be produced in a controlled environment (Good manufacturing procedures GMP, and Good Agricultureal Procedures GAP )
Why a Remedy Bank?
For several years, preparators in public phar- macies and small laboratories are confronted
What makes Remedy Bank unique? Remedy Bank has a cooperative structure: the clients can become shareholders of their sup- plier, in casu Remedy Bank. The majority of these shareholders (pharmacies, doctors, license holders, patients) prevents a monopo- listic policy, which in turn guarantees the inde- pendence of Remedy Bank. The direction of the cooperative is exclusively in the hands of phar- macists.
Remedy Bank has its own infrastructure for the production of raw materials and is therefore less dependent on other sources. That inde- pendence warrants the support of pharmacy- preparators and laboratories that are less able to produce their own raw materials.
In addition, Remedy Bank has developed a unique quality assurance system that enables the full documentation of raw materials and stocks. All starting materials are delivered in accordance with current scientific knowledge together with the relevant analytical and other certificates. They are 100% traceable in accor- dance with the European Directives for Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP, see also Annex 2 – same problem as above – not included).
Through it’s a web-based sales system, Remedy Bank has a worldwide reach. Everyone with the necessary qualifications to process homeopathic raw materials into medicines can rely on the certified collection of raw materials
• Alongside the certificate of analysis, Remedy Bank can also provide other docu- ments that can record the identity, quality, tenability and security of the product.
• The tenability of most homeopathic raw materials is generally accepted to be 5 years, unless other details are available. This tenability concerns only the pharma- ceutical quality of the raw material in its original packaging. This is not the period in which this raw material contains its thera- peutic qualities for the patient! The period may be longer but it is not determined by the pharmaceutical tenability of the raw material.
• Remedy Bank can, if required, control the identity and quality of raw materials obtained from third parties and provide the results in a certificate of analysis.
• In the long runRemedy Bank wishes to play an active role in the determination and guarantee of the security of homeopathic raw materials. It is for this reason that we want to collect the necessary data through a scientific research project within the con- text of the procedure “First Safe Dilution” as developed by the pharmaceutical control authorities.
• Remedy Bank wishes to make online soft- ware available, under certain conditions, in order to facilitate the management of homeopathic preparation laboratories in the officina. For example:
by a drastic decline in the number of available homeopathic stocks. A decreasing number of producers develop a shrinking variety of raw materials. Detailed information on the judicial framework that is responsible for this problem can be found in Annex I of this brochure [is annex 1 going to be included? If not, then please refrase).
Remedy Bank tackles this problem and ensures the preservation and availability of original clas- sic homeopathic medicines.
in order to prepare homeopathic remedies of • the highest and reproducible quality.
Shareholders have access to very interesting purchase conditions and have in addition free access to all the full database of quality docu- ments. The prescriber-shareholders have free •
Online management of the dilution stock; Remedy Bank substances are simultane- ously automatically followed in terms of ten- ability, analytical documents and batch numbers
Online composition en printing of labels for
access to all the quality documents of materials of the prescribed medicines.
What else can Remedy Bank do?
In the context of current scientific and logical possibilities, Remedy Bank will other tasks other than the distribution fied raw materials.
the raw
techno- develop of certi-
the dilution stock
• Consultation of databases on homeopathic
raw materials.
• In the long term, remedy bank wishes to
organize trainings on knowledge of raw materials, their application and their pro- cessing into homeopathic medicines.
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