Background of the invention : Gum resin of Boswellia species known as frankincense has been used as an anti-inflammatory agent in Traditional Ayurvedic Medicine in India.

Studies carried out have established anti-inflammatory activity of an alcoholic extract of the gum resin obtained fi-om Boswellia serrata in mice and rats. This extract is also shown to inhibit the formation of leukotrienes in rat peritoneal neutrophils in vitro. The source of anti-inflammatory actions has been attributed to boswellic acids (Safayhi, H. , et a/., Planta Medica published from USA and 63~ 487-493, 1997 ; J. Pharmacol. and Exp. ther., 261. 1143-46, 1992) published from USA, a group of triterpene acids isolated from the Boswellia resin (Pardhy, R. S. , et al., Indian J.

Chem, 16B, 176-178, 1978). These compounds exert anti-inflammatory activity by inhibiting 5-lippxygenase (5-LO), a key enzyme for the biosynthesis of leukotrienes and 5 (S)-HETE from arachidonic acid. A detailed study on the structure requirements for boswellic acids indicated that of all the six acids, 3-O-acetyl-1 1-keto-ß-boswellic acid, hereinafter referenced as AKBA shows most pronounced inhibitory activity (Sailer, E. R., et al., British J. Pharmacology, 117, 615-618, 1996). AKBA acts by a unique mechanism, in which it binds to 5-LO in a calcium-dependent and reversible manner and acts as a non-redox-type, non-competitive inhibitor (Sailer, E. R., et al., Eur. J. biochem., 256, 364 -368, 1998).

Gum resin of Boswellia and boswellic acids have been known to possess other therapeutic activities and they are being used to treat human ailments such as bronchial asthama (Gupta, I., et al., Eur. J. Med Res., 3 (11), 511- 514 1998), ulcerative colitis (Gupta, I., Parihar, A. , et al., Eur. J. Med. Res.

2(1), 37-43, 1997) and human leukemia (Yu Shao, Chi-Tang Ho et al., Planta Medica published from USA, 64 328-331, 1998).

Anticarcenogenic property of alcoholic extract of this resin has been disclosed by Mukherji, S. , et al. (Indics J. Pharma. 32, 48 - 49, 1970). Immunomodulatory activity of boswellic acids had been reported by Sharma et al. in Phyfothemphy Research, (10, 107-112, 1996), published from USA Disclosure of the invention : Organic solvent extract of the gum resin of Boswellia serrata is found to contain a total of six boswellic acids. These acids are shown in Fig. 1 and are represented by B1, B2, B3, B4, B5 and B6. Concentration of AKBA, indicated as B2 in the Fig. 1, amounts only in the range of 1 to 10% in the natural boswellic acids fraction.

Present invention is aimed at enriching the concentration of AKBA in the boswellic acids fraction to a desired concentration upto 100%. Another objective of this invention is to remove inactive or less potent boswellic acids by converting them to highly potent AKBA. It is possible to obtain AKBA of high purity upto 100% by the simple process followed by the inventors.

A combination of chemical reactions and physical separations by chromatographic methods achieves these objectives.

The first step in the process involves the oxidation of the boswellic acid mixture to keto-boswellic acids. An oxidant conventionally used for allylic oxidation is preferably used for this step. The second step involves conversion of 1 l-keto-ß-boswellic acids obtained from oxidation to 3-0- acctyl-11-kcto-p-boswcllic acid by acetylation. Dry material obtained after acetylation showed 3040% AKBA by HPLC analysis.

Alternately, the first step in the process involved acetylation of the boswellic acids mixture to acetylated boswellic acids. This step could be executed by any typical acetylating agent like acetic anhydride/pyridine. The second step involves conversion of acetylated boswellic acids into 3-0- acetyl-11-keto-ß-boswellic acid by oxidation. Oxidizing agents such as selenium dioxide in a suitable solvent, sodium dichromate AcOH-AcaO, t- butylchromate in CCl4-AcOH-Ac2O, Cr03-Pyridine can also utilised to conduct oxidation step. Dry material obtained after oxidation showed 30- 40% AKBA by HPLC analysis.

Higher grade AKBA is obtained from the acetylation mixture by chromatographic methodology. Solid supports such as one or more of silica gel, reversed phase silica, alumina, sephadex and toyopearl can be used in the process. Chromatographic techniques are selected from gravity column, flash chromatography, reversed phase chromatography, preparative high pressure liquid chromatography and the combinations thereof Solvents such as acetone, chloroform, dichloromethanef ethyl acetate, hexane and water either alone or in combination to run a gravity column or flash column or medium pressure column are used.

This invention relates to a process for producing 10% to 100% of AKBA from an extract containing a mixture of boswellic acids, obtained from gum resin of Boswellia species, which comprises the steps of oxidising the said boswellic acids containing fraction and subsequent acetylation of said oxidised fraction, followed by chromatographic separation to obtain a fraction enriched in AKBA in the range of 30 to 100%. A fraction enriched in AKBA in the range of 10-30% can be accomplished by suitably diluting 40% enriched sample with a suitable excipient or natural boswellic acids mixture or by controlling the extent of oxidation by limiting the oxidant during the conversion process.

Brief description of the drawings: Figure 1, shows the six boswellic acids present in an extract obtained from the gum resin.

Figure 2 is a flow chart showing the reaction scheme consisting of oxidation and acetylation resulting in 40. 3% AKBA after conversion of the other (3-boswellic acids into AKBA.

Best method of carrying out this invention : The following example illustrates one of the best methods of carrying out the process according to this invention.

Oxidation step : The boswellic acids mixture (85%, 20 g) containing 2. 7% 3- O-acetyl-1 ß-boswellic acid was dissolved in 1.2 L of dioxane in a 2 L round bottom flask. N-Bromosuccinimide (24 g) was then added to the mixture. Calcium carbonate (20 g) was then added followed by 0.12 L of water. The reaction mixture was then stirred at room temperature. After 24 hours, the mixture was poured into crushed ice and extracted with 2 X 300 mL of ethyl acetate. The combined organic layer was successively washed with 200 mL of water and 200 mL of brine and dried over 50 g of sodium sulphate. The extract was evaporated and dried under vacuum to obtain 18.4 g of a mixture containing 28% of 11-keto-p-boswellic acid (B1) and 13.2% of 3-0-acetyl-1 1-keto-p-boswellic acid (B2).

Acetvlation step : To a mixture of ketoboswellic acids (20 g), obtained in the oxidation step in 20 mL of dichloroethane, 12 mL of acetyl chloride, 10 mL of pyridine were added. The mixture was stirred at 60°C for 3h and at room temperature for 12h. The reaction mixture was poured into crushed ice and stirring continued for about 10 min. White precipitate formed was filtered and washed thoroughly with distilled water and dried at 50°C in a vacuum drier for three hours to obtain a mixture of boswellic acids as acetates (20. 3 g). HPLC analysis showed that the mixture contained 40. 3% of 3-0-acetyl- 1 l-keto-, B-boswellic acid (AKBA) Further enrichment of AKBA: 10 g of the above mixture of boswellic acid, which was assayed to contain 40. 3% of AKBA was subjected to flash chromatography on a silica column using 200 mL of hexane, 200 mL of 8% ethyl acetate/hexane and 200 mL of 12% ethyl acetate in hexane as eluants.

Each 20 ml fractions were collected. Fractions containing AKBA were combined and evaporated to obtain a residue of 4.0 g, which exhibited 80% of AKBA by HPLC analysis.

Enrichment of AKBA to 100%: The 80% pure AKBA obtained in the previous step was subjected to repeated chromatography over silica gel using acetone and hexane mixtures as eluants to obtain 98 to 100% AKBA.

Alternately, 80% pure AKBA was subjected to preparative HPLC on C 18 column (Phenomenex, Luna, 250 mm x 21.2 mm, 10y 248 nm, 20 mL/min) using acetonitrile and water mixtures as eluants to obtain 99-100% AKBA (tRl3 min).

Though the above example describes a specific embodiment of this invention, obvious equivalents and modifications known to persons skilled in the art are not excluded from the scope of the appended claims.