Jungle to shelf.

Bolivian pharmaceutical company Laboratorio Hahnemann will be the country's first exporter of medicinal products to the United States and Canada. It now is launching natural products based on native plants known as maca and cat's claw after investing in industrial-scale production facilities.

Maca, or Lepidium meyennii, only grows over 3,500 meters above sea level in Peru and Bolivia, while bark from Amazonian vine cat's claw, or Uncaria tomentosa, could soon be available as natural remedies in U.S. chains including Walgreens and Publix once the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves product packaging. The goverment approved the medicinal products themselves last year.

Maca, a non-prescription natural antioxidant, energizer, revitalizer and aphrodisiac will be sold as a nutritional dietary supplement in blister packs of 60 and 100 capsules under the name Real Maca. It will retail for under US$5. One golf ball-sized dried maca can produce two or three capsules.

Cat's claw, an anti-inflammatory that is also good for the immune system, is harvested from the Amazon jungle in Alto Beni north of La Paz. It will retail from $5 to $10 in a similarly sized package.

Overcoming developed-world skepticism regarding third-world medicinal products was a challenge. "We have to integrate the production chain and get them using quality norms for agriculture. This is difficult, as Bolivian farmers live as they did 150 years ago with the same means of production," says the lab's operations manager, Jamil Rodas.

Laboratorio Hahnemann has spent $1 million to date to develop the two products, including $250,000 to install a production line at its La Paz factory capable of producing 100,000 packs a month. Further investments will follow to increase production capacity tenfold.