It can now import medical cannabis that is EU-GMP certified and sterilized by irradiation
AgraFlora Organics International Inc () (OCTMKTS:AGFAF) said Tuesday that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Farmako GmbH has secured a special authorization from the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices for the distribution of medical cannabis flowers that have undergone an ionizing radiation treatment (AMRadV license).
This is a critical milestone for Farmako, as the German medical cannabis wholesaler will now be able to import for sale in Germany medical cannabis that is EU-GMP certified, but which has been subject to sterilization by irradiation.
With the stringent safety requirements imposed by Health Canada, many licensed cannabis producers use irradiation to ensure their products are contaminant-free. In fact, industry experts have estimated that over 80% of licensed producers use irradiation to sterilize their product.
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To date, the German medical cannabis market has been undersupplied due to a number of factors, including the general scarcity of EU-GMP certified cannabis flowers available in the international market. The supply shortage is made worse because many EU-GMP exporting jurisdictions, such as Canada, commonly require the use of microbial sterilization prior to sale. Without the AMRadV license, such sterilized cannabis could not be made available for sale in Germany’s medical cannabis program.
“By securing the AMRadV license, Farmako can now solve one of the biggest bottlenecks affecting growth: access to EU-GMP certified medical cannabis flowers,” said Farmako CEO Katrin Eckmans.
“We are now one of only a small group of companies that may import and distributed sterilized cannabis flowers in Germany. This is a significant advantage for Farmako versus its peers that do not hold the AMRadV license due to sterilized EU-GMP cannabis flower being more available for import than EU-GMP cannabis flower that has not been sterilized,” she added.
The Farmako boss said that with the license in hand, the company was “well positioned” to access increased international supply and “take advantage of the massive growth of demand for medical cannabis in Germany.”
Farmako GmbH is a leading European medical cannabis distributor, headquartered in Frankfurt, with affiliated companies in the UK, Luxembourg and Denmark. The company has a distribution network of 19,800 pharmacies in Germany covering 100,000 patients.
Germany is expected to be Europe’s largest medical cannabis market and has the potential to develop into one of the world’s largest markets for medical cannabis.
The company said expanded access to medical cannabis supply from a variety of source destinations as permitted by the AMRadV license, will allow Farmako to continue to position itself as a “competitive” pharmaceutical wholesaler, ensuring strong access to medical cannabis products for German patients.
According to management, Farmako has achieved a market share of approximately 8% of the German medical market. With the patient population growing 12,400% since 2017 and the restrictions on sterilized cannabis flowers, Farmako has been unable to capture additional growth, noted the company.
“With the additional license in hand, Farmako intends on rapidly expanding its international vendor network” to increase its revenues from the German market this year, said the AgraFlora Organics.
A diversified cannabis company, Vancouver-based AgraFlora owns an indoor cultivation facility in London, Ontario, as well as the edibles manufacturing facility in Winnipeg. The company is also a joint venture partner in Propagation Services Canada Inc, which operates a 2.2 million-square-foot greenhouse complex in Delta, British Columbia.
AgraFlora’s wholly-owned subsidiary Farmako GmbH is scaling towards its goal of being Europe’s leading distributor of medical cannabis.
Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at [email protected]
Follow her on Twitter: @UttaraProactive
