Phil Rasmussen

Phil Rasmussen is a medical herbalist, pharmacist and researcher with more than 30 years of clinical practice experience. He is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy at the University of Auckland, and served as President of the NZ Association of Medical Herbalists from 2018-2021. He is a founding board member of the local industry body Natural Health Products New Zealand, and previously founded and developed a GMP-certified company manufacturing more than 200 herbal extracts for practitioners in New Zealand and Australia. He also formulated and launched the Kiwiherb range of herbal remedies, using locally grown and mostly certified organic plants.

He has particular interests in the native plants of Aotearoa New Zealand, plant health and sustainability, mental health and substance dependency conditions, and improving public access to practitioner phytotherapy services. 

Phil is a staunch advocate for land use diversification and efforts to enhance local autonomy and resilience in the medicinal plant supply chain, while simultaneously incorporating ethical and sustainability principles. In recent years he has been actively involved with several programmes undertaking medicinal plant field trials, as part of efforts to establish a stronger commercial medicinal plant growing sector in his country.