Natural Scientific Pharma: how adversity gave birth to opportunity

A personal quest for solutions

My name is Isaac Bohulu. I am the founding director of Natural Scientific Pharma, and I am responsible for making the products of our company. Setting up Natural Scientific Pharma arose from a personal quest for solutions to particular ailments that confronted, me and for which I had not found satisfactory solutions.

A terrible situation

At one point in my adult life, my teeth, gums, and tongue became my daily concern. I had a persistent build-up of plaque on my teeth, despite a consistent tooth brushing regime. My tongue had a constant whitish coating, and my gums were receding. At the same time, I suffered from an intractable sinus congestion. The combination of these factors left me a terrible bad breath situation. I always brushed my teeth three or four times a day, yet soon after each brushing, my breath would be embarrassingly foul. I tried everything, relying on my training as a pharmacist, and yet the situation changed little. It was truly frustrating.

A dry skin condition

That is not all. Around this same time, my child who was in primary school, developed a skin condition.  The skin on her back would become so dry in places that it would literally crack. Whenever it happened, she would be in pain and would cry. She was prescribed ointments, but they did little to help her. The situation with my little girl added to my frustration.

The inspiration

Then, one day, an inner voice made itself heard; “aren’t you a Pharmacist? What is the use of your knowledge and skill if you can’t to solve your own problems? Your fathers used herbal remedies to solve all their health problems, and your solution may lie there.”

“aren’t you a Pharmacist? What is the use of your knowledge and skill if you can’t to solve your own problems?“

This took me to my early beginnings in my very remote village in Western Region of Ghana. My parents and grandparents administered one form of concoction or another to treat every form of ailment and they all worked perfectly. It was time to end my frustration, if conventional medicines would not help me, I would find my solutions in herbal remedies, I told myself. I had been inspired.

The brown mixture

Thus inspired, I focused on finding a solution to my teeth and gum problem as a first step. It didn’t take long to discover the potential of the Neem tree and clove buds in gum problems.

From these I developed a mixture which I used as mouth rinse. It was brown in colour and, in appearance, did not look like any of the commercially available mouthwashes on the market. Nevertheless, that brown mixture, which later became Neemfresh Herbal Mouthwash, did for me what many conventional mouthwashes had failed to do.

Within a week of using this brown mixture, I noticed a significant reduction in buildup of plaque on my teeth. Then, I noticed that it was easier for me to remove plaque from my teeth than before. After a month of using my brown mixture, I was convinced beyond all doubt that there was great potential in my newly developed mouthwash/mouth rinse.

Exciting feedback

But there was this question I had to answer: will people use a brown mixture as a mouthwash?  To find the answer, I prepared several small batches of my brown mouthwash and gave samples to my closest friends and acquaintances. Their feedback was extremely exciting: it stopped their gum bleeding, it healed their swollen gums, it gave significant relief from their toothaches, and it healed sores in their kids’ mouths; and nobody seemed too bothered by the brown colour.

“it stopped their gum bleeding, it healed their swollen gums, it gave significant relief from their toothaches, and it healed sores in their kids’ mouths; and nobody seemed too bothered by the brown colour”.

With time, those who had tried my brown mouthwash wanted samples for their friends, so in the end I had over 100 individuals using the product and giving insightful feedback.

The birth of a company

The success of this brown mouthwash spurred me on create a herbal nasal spray for my sinus congestion, and a Shea butter-based cream for my daughter’s dry skin both of which, respectively, worked excellently for me and my daughter and for all who tried those two products.

Then one day a woman who had tried my brown mouthwash urged me to produce it for sale and was very insistent in her approach. It was such a good idea; if these products had solved my problems, it was most likely to do same for many others.

So, I moved to register my three products with the Ghana Food and Drugs Authority. The brown mixture was registered as Neemfresh Herbal Mouthwash, and the other two products as Sinuclear Nasal decongestant spray, and Sheroderm Natural Restorative cream.

Natural-Scientific Pharmaceuticals was the company I founded as the vehicle to provide the benefits of my products to many other people.

Key aim and joy

The key aim of the company is to produce natural and herbal remedies, applying scientific knowledge and practices, and to package them to the standard to suit the needs of the modern consumer. It is a great source of personal joy to see people that what began as the quest for a personal solution has ended up with benefits for many other people.