Curated News
By: NewsRamp Editorial Staff
December 02, 2025
ABVC's Plant-Based ADHD Drug Offers Safer Alternative Amid Polypharmacy Concerns
TLDR
- ABVC BioPharma's plant-based ADHD drug ABV-1505 offers a competitive edge with its non-addictive, non-stimulant profile that may reduce long-term medication burden compared to conventional treatments.
- ABV-1505 is a botanical extract from Polygala tenuifolia that works as a non-stimulant ADHD treatment, showing efficacy in Phase II trials with no serious adverse events reported.
- ABVC's plant-based ADHD candidate ABV-1505 could make tomorrow better by providing safer treatment options that reduce the need for multiple psychiatric medications over a patient's lifetime.
- ABVC BioPharma is developing a plant-based ADHD drug from Polygala tenuifolia that shows promise as a non-addictive alternative to traditional stimulant medications.
Impact - Why it Matters
This development matters because ADHD affects millions of children and adults worldwide, and current stimulant-based treatments, while effective for symptom management, have raised concerns about long-term safety, dependency risks, and the potential for escalating medication regimens. The phenomenon of psychiatric polypharmacy—where patients end up on multiple psychiatric medications—represents a significant public health concern with implications for patient safety, healthcare costs, and quality of life. ABVC's plant-based approach could potentially offer a treatment option that addresses core ADHD symptoms while minimizing the risks associated with traditional stimulant therapies. For families navigating ADHD treatment decisions, this represents a promising development toward having more choices that prioritize long-term safety alongside effectiveness. The biopharmaceutical industry's exploration of botanical alternatives also reflects a broader shift toward more holistic approaches in mental health treatment, potentially reducing reliance on synthetic compounds with known side effect profiles.
Summary
In response to growing national concerns about psychiatric polypharmacy—the increasing trend of children and adolescents starting ADHD medications and later receiving multiple additional psychiatric drug prescriptions—ABVC BioPharma, Inc. (NASDAQ: ABVC) has highlighted the distinctive safety profile of its plant-based ADHD drug candidate, ABV-1505. The company's statement directly addresses recent media coverage, including a notable Wall Street Journal article that has drawn public attention to this issue, emphasizing the need for safer therapeutic alternatives to conventional stimulant therapies that may contribute to long-term medication burdens.
ABVC's ADHD program centers on ABV-1505, a botanical extract derived from Polygala tenuifolia that represents a fundamentally different approach from traditional treatments. Unlike stimulant or amphetamine-based therapies, ABV-1505 is plant-based, non-stimulant, not shown to cause addiction or dependency, and has demonstrated no drug-related serious adverse events in early clinical studies. The candidate has completed a Phase II clinical trial at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), showing statistically significant improvement on ADHD rating scales compared with placebo while being well-tolerated. According to Dr. Uttam Patil, ABVC's Chief Executive Officer, the development of ABV-1505 specifically aims to address the unmet need for treatments that can manage ADHD symptoms without increasing the risk of additional psychiatric medications later in life.
As a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, ABVC BioPharma maintains an active pipeline of six drugs and one medical device under development, utilizing technology licensed from prestigious research institutions including Stanford University, UCSF, and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The company is preparing the next phase of clinical development for ABV-1505 in collaboration with global partners, positioning this plant-based candidate as a potential expansion of the treatment toolbox available to patients and healthcare providers seeking alternatives to current ADHD therapies. This development comes amid increasing public awareness about the long-term implications of psychiatric medication regimens, with ABVC positioning ABV-1505 as a potentially safer option that could help reduce the likelihood of escalating to multi-drug psychiatric treatments.
Source Statement
This curated news summary relied on content disributed by NewMediaWire. Read the original source here, ABVC's Plant-Based ADHD Drug Offers Safer Alternative Amid Polypharmacy Concerns
