Link Samahan enters Canadian market

Seventy million sachets of Link Samahan is sold locally while another 35 mln sachets are exported annually said Chairman and Managing Director, Link Natural Products, Dr. Devapriya Nugawela.

The demand for exports will increase as the product has received the licence from The Natural Health Products Directorate, Health Canada and the company starts exporting the product to Canada.

Nugawela said that it is a significant achievement because of the extremely stringent criteria imposed by the Canadian Natural Health Products Regulations. It took over two years to get the necessary approvals.

At present the product is exported to USA, India, Malaysia, Singapore the Middle East and Latvia and it is available in many other countries. .

Export to the USA required conformity with the DHSEA Act, which places emphasis on safety and claims for efficacy, for which a prerequisite were test reports from the University of Cambridge and the University of Georgia, which confirmed that Link Samahan is a 100% natural product The product manufactured using 14 herbs is a popular remedy for colds, catarrh and other common upper respiratory viral infections.

Dr. Nugawela said that It took a team of specialists, Ayurvedic physicians and scientists over 5 years to finalise the formula and arrive at the scientifically optimised process protocol for producing Link Samahan.

It was this rigorous commitment to research, quality assurance and scientific integrity that enabled Link Samahan to gain entry into the Canadian market.

Prof. Colvin Goonaratna, as Chairman of the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation from 1994 to 2001 had to get his staff to test Link Samahan for a wide range of western allopathic drugs including paracetemol, prednisolone and other steroids following allegations that Link Samahan contained western medicinal drugs. Prof. Goonaratna said that Link Samahan was entirely herbal in composition and contained no western medicinal drug of any kind.

The efficacy of Link Samahan is related to its very special formulation and its property of enhancing our body's natural immune system when taken regularly, he said.

Director of Link Samahan and former Director of Ayurveda Research Institute and Retired Special Technical Advisor at UNIDO, Tuley de Silva in charge of herbal products spoke of the stringent regulations that need to be complied with for the import of herbal healthcare products in many developed and developing countries. Requirements that include lack of side-effects, and absence of western medicinal drugs.

We have conformed to all these requirements in the production of Samahan, said Prof de Silva. SG