Patent ID: 7579491

Claim:
A process for preparing brevifoliol, an anticancer compound of formula 1 from plants belonging to the genus Taxus comprising (i) extracting the dried and pulverized leaves of the plant with an alcohol and concentrating the solvent to obtain an alcoholic extract, (ii) adsorbing the alcoholic extract with an adsorbent and drying the adsorbed material wherein the absorbent is chosen from the group consisting of celite, cellulose and mixtures thereof, (iii) extracting the adsorbed material with an aliphatic solvent and then with a chlorinated solvent successively and concentrating the chlorinated solvent to obtain a residue, (iv) subjecting the residue to gross fractionation using column chromatography, followed by (v) chromatography with an adsorbent to get brevifoliol; with the proviso that the method does not involve a water partitioning step for the production of brevifoliol.