Making Iberogast^®

From the field to the bottle, our rigorous manufacturing processes mean Iberogast^® is a high quality, effective and well-tolerated treatment you can rely on to relieve your digestive symptoms¹⁰.

Plant-based medicine isn't easy. Plants need certain nutrients and just the right amount of water and light in order to flourish. To make things trickier, they often only produce beneficial substances at certain points in their life cycle. In addition extracting these substances from plants is a complicated process. We use our expertise to get plant-based medicine right, from controlling growing conditions and optimising the time of harvest to standardising the extraction process¹⁰.

This so-called Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) ensures that the Iberogast^® extracts always have the same amount and composition of effective substances, so you can rely on it for fast, effective, well-tolerated relieve from your digestive symptoms¹.

Investing in sustainability

Bayer follows the highest standards and is committed to sustainability. It harvests quality medical plant extracts with care and is establishing an integrated quality and safety scheme. The nine natural plants used in Iberogast^® are grown carefully and responsibly in a range of locations around the world.

The highest quality

To ensure the highest quality product, we grow our plants under perfect conditions. We also rigorously control the harvest, extraction and manufacturing processes. We tailor our extraction methods to each extract. At every step of the process, the extracts are tested in line with Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) to enforce the highest standards and maintain the utmost quality¹⁰.

A complex manufacturing process

From the field to the bottle, Iberogast^® undergoes a complex manufacturing process that includes strict production rules and controls at every stage.

Cultivating and harvesting

The medicinal plant Iberis amara is a key ingredient in Iberogast^®; it's what gives Iberogast^® its name. Around 30,000kg of the fresh plant is needed annually. Crops covering an area larger than ten football fields are grown in Darmstadt, Germany. The plants are harvested at the optimum time each year, then they are immediately flash-frozen to preserve their valuable active ingredients. Each 50ml bottle of Iberogast^® contains approximately one whole Iberis amara plant.

Processing and monitoring

The other eight medicinal plants used to make Iberogast^® are grown and harvested safely and sustainably around the world. After an extensive quality audit, the different varieties are carefully crushed, then mixed with an alcohol and water solution to extract and preserve the plants' valuable herbal components¹⁰.

The finished product

Once all quality control standards have been met, the treatment is bottled, sealed and packaged on a state of the art production line. From cultivation to packaging, your bottle of Iberogast^® undergoes around 50 different quality checks.