Indena is the world's leading company dedicated to the identification, development and production of active principles derived from plants, for use in the pharmaceutical, health-food and cosmetics industries.

Indena, a privately owned Italian company, has around 700 employees, including 10% dedicated to full-time research, manages cultivation, manufacturing, and distribution operations in more than 40 countries throughout the world.

The key to Indena's success is its research, covering: the screening of medicinal plants for their pharmacological benefits; the identification of new active principles; and the development of extraction and purification systems at the cutting-edge of industrial application.

The phyto-chemical research is carried out in Indena's own Research Center in Settala, Italy. Indena also co-operates with the world's most prestigious universities and private research institutions in the biological assessment of safety and effectiveness up to clinical phase I.

One of the main strategic objectives of the research is the development of new active principles for pharmaceutical applications. This is also an indispensable base for the health-food and cosmetics industries.

In the pharmaceutical sector Indena is currently focusing on the development of anti-cancer treatments, following the successes of paclitaxel, as well as on anti-microbial and on anti-viral drugs. Also under study are active principles for the treatment of pathologies and dysfunction of the central nervous system, such as depression, anxiety, impotence, sleep disorders, and algesia.

Today Indena is also concentrating its efforts on the industrial production of high-quality standardised active principles derived from plants, which are important ingredients in health food products. In fact, the company produces standardised extracts from edible plants that are traditionally recognised as having therapeutic properties, as well as from plants that have proven pharmacological value. Indena's research and production activities are particularly attentive to plant-based principles that have anti-oxidant properties and are effective in preventing damage caused by free radicals.

Backed by over 80 years of botanical experience, the Italian company has developed a plantation network, managed by experts, to supply its research and production centers with officinal plants, while at the same time ensuring bio-diversity and protecting the ecosystem balance from uncontrolled harvesting. Today more than 60% of the raw material used in the manufacturing process comes from cultivation.

Indena's decades-long global presence in the plant extraction industry is a guarantee of its in-depth knowledge and understanding of the business, market trends and legal considerations, through constant communication and interaction between the company's experts and the major international regulatory authorities such as WHO, EMEA, and ESCOP, and main pharmacopoeias.