Putting the ‘smart’ in natural medicine

Natural medicine, scientifically tested for safety and efficacy

Did you know? The oldest written record of herbal medicine is a 5000-year-old Sumerian clay tablet with 12 recipes for herbal medicine.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines herbal medicine as “herbs, herbal materials, herbal preparations and finished herbal products, that contain as active ingredients parts of plants, or other plant materials, or combinations”.

Natural medicines are recognised by the WHO as a key part of health maintenance and disease prevention. Many people rely on natural herbal medicine to manage chronic symptoms in an affordable and sustainable way.

SmartHerbals products have extensive indigenous knowledge and modern clinical and/or pre-clinical data that supports their use in managing human health.

Addressing social needs with natural medicine

The story begins over 10 years ago - harnessing the power of Aloe in health.

The challenge is AIDS-related diarrhoea, severe diarrhoea caused by the virus and by many of the anti-retroviral drugs used to control it. The aloe-based colon regulator is affordable, effective, and safe in treating severe diarrhoea, but also in other gut-health issues like constipation and bloating.

In 2022, Smart Biotech establishes SmartHerbals to bring Healthy Gut, and other life-changing natural medicines, to market.

SmartHerbals Healthy Gut exemplifies the type of natural medicine that SmartHerbals aims to market in South Africa - it addresses a real social need, has been clinically tested for safety and efficacy, and it uses natural ingredients.

Introducing SmartHerbals

In nature, plants are challenged by a wide variety of herbivores, bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Consequently, they have developed a veritable arsenal of compounds that dissuade, defend against, or even dispatch their enemies. These compounds, called secondary metabolites (in contrast to the primary metabolites that are needed for growth and development), are what humans have relied on as medicine since pre-historic times.

Globally, around 80% of people turn to phytomedicines (medicine made from plants) to treat acute and chronic health conditions. However, not all treatments have been scientifically tested in clinical settings to determine the best form, dosage, treatment regimen, and safety of these herbal remedies.

We select only herbal products that have been thoroughly tested for the conditions we claim they treat. In doing so, we promote access to trustworthy phytomedicines.


Meet our team of scientists

Founder and CEO

Dr Sibongile Gumbi is the Founder and CEO of Smart Biotech. She holds a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Cape Town and an EMBA from IMD, Switzerland. Dr Gumbi’s career spans the technology-innovation value-chain, starting from idea-creation to where she is now, an entrepreneur. She has held numerous posts in the areas of technology and innovation management.

As an entrepreneur, Dr Gumbi founded Smart Innovation Management Consulting in 2007 and managed Ferox Pharm, a phytomedicines producer.

She is a Fellow of the eighth class of the Africa Leadership Initiative.

Throughout her career she has always had a deep passion for innovation, especially innovation relating to the development of new technologies and inventions.

Operations manager

Dr Carin Basson is a plant molecular biologist by training, with a passion for research management and (more recently) business operations. She completed her B.Sc, Hons and M.Sc. (Plant Biotechnology), and her Ph.D. in Wine Biotechnology at Stellenbosch University, followed by an online certificate course in business administration at the Stellenbosch University Business School.

Dr Basson has followed a diverse and meandering road in the search for a science-related career in South Africa, which included research support services to post-graduate students, academic programme coordinators, and private companies, research and operations management for a biomedical engineering start-up, paralegal work in the world of luxury goods, and scientific editing, before joining Smart Biotech as operations manager.