MediHerb was co-founded by Kerry Bone, a first class honors graduate of Melbourne University who won the Masson Memorial Prize as Australia’s top Chemistry student. After eight years as a research scientist, Kerry then completed, with distinction, the four-year Diploma in Phytotherapy in England.

Upon returning to Australia to practice as an herbalist, he became frustrated with the poor quality of herbal extracts available at that time and the resulting effects for his patients. By applying his scientific training he developed a unique method of extraction, termed 1:2 Cold Percolation. Word of these high quality herbal products spread and requests were soon received from health care professionals for supply around Australia and so MediHerb was born.

MediHerb is the first choice in herbal products for Australian health care professionals and since 2001 MediHerb has been available in the United States through our partnership with Standard Process Inc. Both companies share the same philosophy and unwavering commitment to product quality and excellent service.

MediHerb Manufacturing Processes and Quality Control for Herbs

This chart follows on from the Quality Assured Sourcing of Herbs process, which is featured on our Quality Assurance page

Unique Extraction: 1:2 Cold Percolation Process

The 1:2 Cold Percolation method is unlike other herbal extraction processes; no heat or concentration are used, both of which may cause damage to the delicate plant material. The greatest care is taken to prevent any contamination from outside sources throughout the extraction process:

• All extraction equipment is designed and built from stainless steel
• Air used in the manufacturing complex is thoroughly cleaned using pharmaceutical standard filtering units

MediHerb prefers to use high quality dried herbs in making extracts rather than fresh herbs. Fresh herbs have a high water content, up to 80% and this makes for a weaker extract. In addition to the herb itself, we use only two other raw materials in manufacturing our herbal extracts, ethanol and purified water. Both are chosen very carefully to ensure the most efficacious product and meet pharmaceutical standard specifications.

All process water used in extraction is purified by reverse osmosis. First, it is filtered through numerous filter beds to remove particulate matter and organic compounds, then passed through reverse osmosis cartridges to remove the ionic materials before finally passing through an ultra-fine filter. The water produced is very low in all contaminants – organic, ionic and particulate – and is tested to comply with the British Pharmacopoeia specification for purified water BP2011.

1:2 Cold Percolation - no heat or concentration, therefore
no damage to the herb's constituents

MediHerb only uses ethanol that complies with the British Pharmacopoeia specification for ethanol, BP2011. Ethanol is essential to extract the full phytochemical profile of the plant, this cannot be achieved using water or glycerol alone. Ethanol has been used for hundreds of years in herbal extraction and old herbal texts discuss steeping herbs in wine over long periods. The human liver is naturally conditioned to metabolize small amounts of ethanol from ripe fruit and naturally fermented food. Any toxic effects from ethanol are dose-related and there is minimal risk of potential ethanol toxicity with herbal extracts due to the low daily dosage required. The usual recommended dose of most 1:2 herbal extracts is only 5 mL three times per day and in 5 mL there is approximately the same amount of ethanol as ¹/₆ of a standard glass of beer or wine. 

Through our scientific analysis MediHerb has chosen specific ethanol percentages for each herb to maximize the quality, for example 25% ethanol extracts of St Mary’s Thistle will not contain any silymarin because it is insoluble at this concentration.