Phytopharm buys herbal treatment for asthma

Phytopharm, the biotech company developing drugs from plants, is in talks to buy up to four remedies from a Vietnamese herbalist that could introduce treatments for asthma and gout into the group's portfolio.

Phytopharm, the biotech company developing drugs from plants, is in talks to buy up to four remedies from a Vietnamese herbalist that could introduce treatments for asthma and gout into the group's portfolio.

Dr Richard Dixey, the chief executive, said a deal could be completed by the end of this year. "Some existing treatments for asthma can have potentially harmful side effects if used repeatedly. We may have found a natural treatment that avoids them," he said.

Phytopharm rejects the analytical approach to drug discovery pursued by most biotechnology groups in favour of a purely empirical stance. Its starting point is identifying natural herbal remedies that have often existed in folklore for thousands of years. The group has several patents on the use of plants in drug development.

The shares hit an all-time high of 689.5p last week, valuing Phytopharm at £244m, after it revealed pre-clinical data that suggested Phytopharm's botanical treatment for Alzheimer's, the brain disease, was capable of dramatically reversing short-term memory loss.