Dr. Matthias Lorenz studied horticultural sciences at the Technical University of Munich Weihenstephan (TUM) with a focus on eco-physiology and secondary metabolites in plants, which he successfully completed as an agricultural engineer (Dipl. Ing. agr (Univ)). With his thesis on Valeriana edulis ssp. procera Meyer he exemplarily demonstrated the way of a Domestication of wild growing tropical-subtropical medicinal plants and graduated as Doctor of Agricultural Sciences (Dr. agr.).
For more than 10 years he was engaged in projects of international development cooperation in Central and South America. During this time he coordinated several projects of domestication of medicinal plants, involved European and American companies in joint ventures and organized the first International Congress on „Herbal Medicinal Products“ for Chile and Mercosur.
Back in Germany, he managed international research and cultivation of Indian medicinal plants at „Centers for Medical Innovation“ (CMI), Munich-Martinsried. Subsequently, he designed and managed a long-term research project on quality assurance of tropical medicinal plants for Klosterfrau, Cologne and Berlin.
At Boehringer Ingelheim, he took over the management of research on several medicinal plants and implemented quality assurance measures for international sourcing activities. He progressed to become a GMP auditor with focus on GACP.
For Steigerwald, a subsidiary of Bayer Consumer Health, he designed and coordinated research on medicinal plants in Germany but also internationally and was responsible for quality assurance as well as risk avoidance in raw material sourcing. He conducted seminars, workshops and trainings on GACP compliant production and primary processing in China, North Africa, Europe and South America. Since 2003, he started to use satellite data to improve and make more transparent strategic sourcing, risk avoidance, quality assurance and research on medicinal plants. This method is also used for audits specifically. Since 2019, applications using drones have also been evaluated and developed.