Out of 391,000 plants known to science only 31,000 have practical applications. 18,000 are classified as medicinal plants, which means they have a documented medicinal effect. But only 150 plants are cultivated industrially. Plant roots provide many of the important biologically active ingredients found in nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food additives & other products. Production of such active ingredients from plants (cultivated by horticultural means or harvested in the wild) is not sufficient to meet the growing market demand. Worse, harvesting of wild plants in many cases poses a significant threat to various species & to their ecosystems, as overharvesting can decrease stocks of the plant and lessen the biodiversity of the area. Despite restrictions & bans in the US up to 90% of wild ginseng is harvested unsustainably, which raises questions about possible extinction of the plant. Increasing demand on ginseng driven by China’s swelling middle class boosts ginseng prices and tempts poachers all over the world. The major issues in the cultivation of medicinal plants in horticulture are both the speed of plant growth, requiring excessive oversized facilities, and very precise control of the cultivation conditions to guarantee a stable and sufficient active ingredient composition. Vertical farming combined with robotics and ultra-controlled growing conditions would make it possible to achieve these profitability objectives. Botalys has developed a technology for growing plants in sterile conditions, which makes it possible to produce medicinal plants with profitability. This proprietary technology is being scaled up on the 2T / year robotic production prototype and having received FSCC22000 certification for the cultivation of medicinal plants in September 2019, which is a world first. As part of this project, our main focus is on the production of Panax Ginseng, Asian ginseng.The aim is also to show that the cultivation of medicinal plants in a highly controlled manner makes it possible to obtain a concentration of stable active ingredients in the plant, without the need for extraction. By keeping the full-spectrum side specific to traditional Chinese medicine but in a controlled and standardized way like Western medicine, Botalys studies by clinical trials in-vitro but also in-vivo on human, the effectiveness of its plants completely characterized from a chemical point of view. Botalys' vision is to bring traditional oriental medicine closer to the rigor of western medicine.
