The company has pioneered the Hepa Plus Research Awards, an annual event that provides funding for innovative undergraduate research.

The research awards have already yielded significant impact, with the first award-winning research being part of the University Entrepreneurial Product winning team that represented the institution at an international competition in Thailand.

At a ceremony to appreciate the impact of the investment, the Head of the Herbal Medicine Department, Prof. Isaac Kingsley Amponsah, and the Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Prof. Samuel Asare Nkansah, presented a citation to the CEO of Ebenage Group, Ebenezer Agyemang.

The citation read: “Mr. Agyemang’s philanthropic investment transcends monetary value; it ignites innovation, validates student creativity, and bridges academia with industry. We celebrate your generosity and vision, trusting this partnership will flourish for years to come. Presented with gratitude and highest esteem.”

In appreciation, Mr. Agyemang expressed delight at the impact the awards have made so far, emphasizing the need to build upon research into herbal medicine.

The university’s Department of Herbal Medicine has extended an invitation to all practitioners to partner with the university to improve the industry.

About the Entrepreneurship Awards

To improve research in herbal medicine, Ebenage Group, producers of Hepa Plus Herbal Mixture partnered with the Department of Herbal Medicine at KNUST to introduce the Hepa Plus Research Awards for undergraduate students of herbal medicine.

The award scheme provides funding to winners of the competition for further research and commercialization.

Others who emerge among the top five students are given opportunities to improve their knowledge in the field.

Some researchers who get into the program are absorbed by Ebenage Group to be mentored and utilize their research.

Hepa Plus is one of the medicinal products manufactured by Ebenage Group, along with Pavi and Plasmox, which are scientifically formulated to boost the human immune system.

Source: Nana Yaw Gyimah

The World Health Organisation projects the global market for herbal products will be worth five trillion dollars by 2050.

It is estimated 951 tonnes of crude herbal medicines were sold on Ghana’s herbal market in 2010, with a total value around 7.8 million dollars.

President of the Herbal Medicine Practitioners Association, Dr. Solomon Appiah Kubi says the group is working with the University for ISO certification to gain acceptability on international markets.

“If you buy a product from China and other foreign countries, you find international standards certification on it, this shows they have standards that make the products highly acceptable. The university will give us a roadmap that will help us attain these standards,” he said.

For years, a section of the public has doubted the efficacy of some herbal medicines because they are not advertised for specific diseases.

The training at KNUST will equip the practitioners with extraction techniques which will ensure products are disease specific and efficacious.

Dr. Solomon Appiah Kubi says the engagements will expose the side effects of herbal medicines for a better appreciation by researchers in chemical medicine practice.

“Herbal medicines have minimal side effects compared to the chemical-based medication. Can we have a study where we can really establish these side effects so that the product can be appreciated by those in chemical-based medication,” he emphasised.

Head of Herbal Medicine Department at KNUST, Prof. Isaac Kingsley Amponsah, says there is a need for researchers to partner industry in ensuring herbal medicine is safer for the public.

“With where our practitioners want to go, I think that we owe them a duty that having brought Science and Technology into herbal medicine practice, we have to help them improve their formulation for the efficacy to go up with low toxicity or very safe profiles,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Dean of Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Prof. Samuel Asare Nkansah, says in ensuring the sustainability of herbal medicine production, research will be conducted into the medicinal purposes of other plants.

“Whatever is responsible for activity in a medicinal plant is what we call secondary metabolites, it is not only one plant that has this that can be useful for the treatment of other conditions, what we will have in the collaboration is research and development,” he said.

Prof. Nkansah added that “through the research, we can help the manufacturers to know that there can be other plants that can do similar work like the others they have known all this while”.

Casting his mind to the good old days, the 56-year-old narrated how his decision to ditch studying medicine for acting cost him some years of fatherly love.

Speaking exclusively on Adom FM’s Entertainment Hall, he revealed as a brilliant Science Student, with Chemistry, Physics, Biology and Mathematics as his electives, his family expected him to take up a further course to materialise his dream of becoming a Doctor.

Mr Dontoh said his Doctorate plans were cut short when he realised God had instilled the passion of acting into his heart.

His decision did not sink well with his father, who he said cut communication with him for two years.

Only God can determine your destiny. If God reveals his plans to you, travel to the moon and back, you will still be led back to that path. Because at that time, I had performed a minor session and Doctors said I had passed but God had already prepared me for a bigger thing.

When asked by the host, Mike 2, to give details of the ‘bigger thing’, Mr Dontoh touted acting, of which he has made name from.

Medicine is just one aspect of acting; actors teach, preach and heal so I was not bothered when I realised what I was practicing was broad.

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His story soon changed for the better when he won his first Best Actors Award in 1984, and his opposition father turned out to be his number one fan.

To make amends for the lost years, his father gave him his never-worn suit and was by his side when he received the award on the night.

Watch his narration below:

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He Jiankui, then an associate professor at Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, said in November 2018 that he had used gene-editing technology known as CRISPR-Cas9 to change the genes of twin girls to protect them from getting infected with the AIDS virus in the future.

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He was suspended from his job and accused of work that was “extremely abominable in nature”. He and his collaborators forged ethical review materials and recruited men with AIDS who were part of a couple to carry out the gene-editing.

His experiments ultimately resulted in two women giving birth to three gene-edited babies, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Doctors in Britain will be able to legally prescribe medicinal cannabis from Nov. 1, after two highly publicized cases of young, epileptic patients dependent on marijuana-based treatments put pressure on the government to review its policy.

The change was announced on Thursday by Home Secretary Sajid Javid after he called for an urgent review of cannabis-based medicinal products over the summer, and his office said in July it had decided that “senior clinicians will be able to prescribe the medicines to patients with an exceptional clinical need.”

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Mr Javid said on Thursday, “Having been moved by heartbreaking cases involving sick children, it was important to me that we took swift action to help those who can benefit from medicinal cannabis.”

The home secretary commissioned the review after the cannabis-based medicine of Billy Caldwell, 12, who has life-threatening epileptic seizures, was confiscated at Heathrow Airport on June 11. The case was publicized in the British news media and prompted a national discussion on the legalization of medicinal cannabis products.

Earlier, the mother of 6-year-old Alfie Dingley, who also has up to 150 seizures a month, said that Prime Minister Theresa May had promised to help explore alternative treatments for the boy, but that she never followed through.

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Mr Javid later announced that the British government would allow both Alfie and Billy temporary special licenses to legally take marijuana-based treatment.

Making medicinal cannabis available on prescription will benefit the lives of ill patients currently suffering in silence. There is nothing harder than seeing your loved ones in pain – which is why I have taken this decision https://t.co/ZFmGgWdJgE

— Sajid Javid (@sajidjavid) July 26, 2018

“We have now delivered on our promise and specialist doctors will have the option to prescribe these products where there is a real need,” the home secretary said on Thursday.

General practice doctors will not be authorized to prescribe the cannabis-based medicines, the Home Office noted, and prescription decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis — “only when the patient has an unmet special clinical need that cannot be met by licensed products,” the statement read.