Article
Galantamine and the butterfly amaryllis
Phytrax Lifesciences · October 2026 · 4 min read
Some of the medicines in today’s pharmacies began as flowers. Galantamine, used in the treatment of Alzheimer’s-type memory loss, is one of them.
A medicine from snowdrops
Galantamine was first identified in the snowdrop, a small white flower of European winters. Decades of research later, it became an established medicine. Today it has an official monograph in the pharmacopoeia, and it is made by several manufacturers around the world.
Still grown, not only synthesised
Galantamine can be made chemically, but much of the supply still comes from plants, mostly daffodil-type flowers grown in cooler countries. That makes supply depend on a few crops in a few places.
A tropical candidate
Hippeastrum papilio, the "butterfly amaryllis", is a relative of the amaryllis found in many Thai gardens. Researchers have reported galantamine in this plant. Unlike daffodils, it likes warm weather.
That raises a simple question: could galantamine be produced in Thailand from a plant grown in Thailand? We do not know yet. Answering that question is what our planned research greenhouse in Saraburi is for.
Careful steps
This is research, not a promise. We will source plants legally, with the permits required. We will measure what the plants actually contain, and only consider an extraction facility if the results are convincing. In the meantime, our main work is our tablet factory, which will make established medicines from proven ingredients.