Pharmactive Biotech, a Madrid, Spain-based natural ingredients company, recently announced that it adopted saffron through the American Botanical Council (ABC)’s Adopt-an-Herb program.
 
Through this program, Pharmactive Biotech will support ABC’s efforts to collect, organize, and disseminate reliable traditional and science-based information including clinical studies on Saffron. The program encourages companies to take part in ABC’s ongoing maintenance of the HerbMedPro database. To date, over 65 companies have adopted a total of 73 herbs. In sum, HerbMedPro provides centralized access to the scientific and clinical research data on the uses and health effects of more than 265 herbs, spices, medicinal plants, and fungi.
 
Each adopted herb is researched continuously for new scientific articles nad botanical, chemical, pharmacological, toxicological, and clinical studies, ensuring that the database stays current and robust. HerbMedPro is available to ABC members at the Academic level and higher, while HerbMed, its sister site, is avialble to the general public at no cost, with a limited amount of herb records from the database.
 
Pharmactive Biotech Products is a privately owned company specializing in natural products supported by scientific evidence. The company states that it is the first to introduce a saffron extract standardized for mood management. Because of saffron’s demand and limited supply, the company takes steps to ensure its products remain unadulterated, through testing, and tracing its crops from the field to in-house production.
 
“Pharmactive is more than pleased to adopt one of the most fascinating and valued plants in the world,” Pharmactive founder and CEO Jean-Marie Raymond said. “Saffron is helping millions of people around the world maintain a positive mood, manage anxiety, and get restorative sleep every day. The excellent safety profile of saffron makes it perfect for different stages of life, including the elderly and adolescents.”
 
ABC founder and executive director Mark Blumenthal expressed similar excitement.
 
“ABC is deeply grateful to our friends at Pharmactive for adopting saffron on ABC’s powerful HerbMedPro database. Saffron is a traditional spice, often considered the most expensive in the world. The past decade has witnessed a virtual explosion of scientific and clinical research on the effects of saffron extracts on the human central nervous system, including its positive effects for people with mild-to-moderate depression. In fact, the emerging saffron research is so impressive that ABC published a review of the clinical literature in HerbalGram issue 110.”