6. industrial production of the active ingredient and the corresponding medicinal preparation, e7. national and international registrationBIODOSY SEPARATION AND STRUCTURAL CHARACTERIZATIONMany important drugs are derived from compounds originally discovered in plants and there is now growing interest in finding new therapeutically useful molecules from natural sources. The naturally occurring compound will, in all likelihood, provide only the starting point for the development of analogues, but the most important step in the discovery process is the identification of this source of interesting biological activity. Different approaches to asset discovery are described below: • The ethnobotanical route • Bioassay-driven serendipity • Direct serendipity • Leveraging chemotaxonomic knowledge • Chemical ecology-based investigations Examples are taken from higher plants, but it should be remembered that it is possible find bioactive molecules from many other sources, for example pteridophytes, fungi, algae, marine organisms and animal venoms. Therefore, the resource of ...