HERBAL medicine is still the mainstay of about 75-80% of the world population, mainly in the developing countries, for primary health care because of better cultural acceptability, better compatibility with the human body and lesser side effects. However, the last few years have seen a major increase in their use in the developed world. In Germany and France, many herbs and herbal extracts are used as prescription drugs and their sales in the countries of European Union were around $ 6 billion in 1991 and may be over $ 20 billion now. In USA, herbal drugs are currently sold in health food stores with a turnover of about $ 4 billion in 1996 which is anticipated to double by the turn of the century1. In India, the herbal drug market is about $ one billion and the export of plant-based crude drugs is around $ 80 million2 . Herbal medicines also find market as nutraceuticals (health foods) whose current market is estimated at about $ 80-250 billion in USA and also in Europe.

A generic drug (generic drugs, short: generics) is a drug which is produced and distributed without patent protection. The generic drug may still have a patent on the formulation but not on the active ingredient. A generic must contain the same active ingredients as the original formulation. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), generic drugs are identical or bioequivalent to the brand name counterpart with respect to pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties. By extension, therefore, generics are identical in dose, strength, route of administration, safety, efficacy, and intended use. In most cases, generic products are available once the patent protections afforded to the original developer have expired. When generic products become available, the market competition often leads to substantially lower prices for both the original brand name product and the generic forms. The time it takes a generic drug to appear on the market varies.

Information technology provides several databases, data analysis tools, and knowledge extraction techniques in almost every facet of life. In pharmaceutical sciences, several successful attempts are being made under the umbrella of pharmacoinformatics (synonymously referred to as pharmainformatics).Chemoinformatics and bioinformatics contribute directly to drug discovery through virtual screening. Topics like neuroinformatics, immunoinformatics, vaccine informatics, and biosystem informatics contribute indirectly by providing necessary inputs for pharmaceutical design in this area. Topics like metabolomics, toxicoinformatics, and ADME informatics arecontributing to this fi eld by providing information regarding the fate of a NCE/lead in vitro and in vivo conditions.The integration of back - end technologies (for storing and representing chemical structure and chemical libraries) and front - end technologies opportunities in chemoinformatics.