News this week that Canntab Therapeutics (PILL.C) received an Australian patent for their hard-pressed cannabis pill tech, to match those received earlier in North America, didn’t launch the stock into space.
That’s understandable, to be honest, as North American investors have taken an eye off the island continent and its slow roll to weed legalization for some time.
The Australian government understands the medical need for legalized THC and CBD products, and it certainly knows a healthy chunk of its citizenry partakes on the regular. It’s no doubt also seen the tax revenue potential of a legalized market from what the North Americans have been doing for a while, but while Australia has long made a habit of trying to impress the world with how advanced it is, public policy is still dominated by handwringers, religious kooks, and chicken littles.
While Australia has a climate that could make it a renowned global source of cannabis, perhaps even matching the once massive ‘Bananas in Pyjamas’ TV and kids merch export juggernaut (at one time, the nation’s #4 exported product behind sheep, coal, and education), there are still old grey haired white men who believe jazz cigarettes will make their daughters hookers.
That’s obviously dumb, but it may just position Canntab Therapeutics just perfectly in the Australian market.
Canntab, for the uninitiated, hasn’t got a massive weed grow to pay for, or several thousand employees, or a warehouse filled with over-produced SKUs with rapidly expiring ‘best before’ dates.
What it has, when you get right down to it, is some very serious pieces of paper, that grant the company the right to take a licensing fee off anyone who might decide to sell hard-pressed cannabis pills.
And where partners don’t exist to take on that physical production responsibility, the company will happily just ship a container of the stuff to you, in your company name, for a nice wedge of cash.
In Australia, they’re already doing this, in a partnership with Medcan Australia’s ‘Cann Global’ subsidiary, which wants the products so they can get with the trials in medical settings.
Once the products are shipped to Cann Global in Australia, the products will be distributed throughout Australia to medical distributors, including doctors, pharmacies and hospitals.
Cann Global actually got an import license in Australia, which is a huge step. This means now Canntab is waiting for Health Canada to issue a corresponding export license, which could land at any time but has been delayed some during Covid.
The fact Canntab got this order is notable, because a lot of Australian players are involved in this study and, now, none of them can use Canntab’s product or tech without first agreeing an import or licensing deal with the Canadian company.
Canntab, through the products it supplies to Cann Global, which is a direct participant in the study, will be participating in this clinical collaboration with major Australian clinics and hospitals to complete the cannabinoid medicine observational study (CMOS) that will collect data from 20,000 patients nationwide over five years. CMOS aims to assess the safety and efficacy of medicinal cannabis products for a range of refractory conditions, including fibromyalgia, chronic pain syndromes, PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder), epilepsy, and other mental health and neurological conditions, using cannabis, including Canntab’s hard-pill cannabinoid formulations.
The beauty of this arrangement is, in a medical setting, nobody wants to deal with smoked flower as a delivery system. Vaping is an inaccurate science. Edibles even moreso. And while gel caps and capsules can get closer to a consistent dose, they’ve not yet proved themselves to be accurate enough for medical practitioners to give the greenlight in Canada.
But hard-pressed pills are a different beast. Able to be sold under prescription like any other medication, and to be delivered in the same manner as a multivitamin, or even sat next to them at the drug store, the Canntab patent places that company directly in front of the earliest stage legal consumers in the nation.
If the outcomes of this testing prove what many, including myself, would expect, not only could hard-pressed pills be the earliest acceptable medical delivery system for the Australian federal government, but that would also give them a big leg up as the rules subsequently shift to other forms of delivery.
Canntab isn’t Oz-reliant; they have a decent production business coming up to speed in Canada, including a nice sized supply deal to Medipharm which is going out to the provinces currently. That could be enough to make the company a good low risk, decent revenue venture.
But the IP, and how that is blossoming down under, is the real deal.
Edibles have had a nice run in Canada, and beverages look to be the next adventure, a least for a while, but none of those products are owned by one company as a category. You want to make THC chocolates? Get your license and do it. Shatter? Fine. Vape carts? Okay.
But pills? That belongs to Canntab. They’re like the only cannabis-based patent troll, and I’m here for that business model.
Let’s get a piece of everyone else’s piece.
DEAL.
— Chris Parry
FULL DISCLOSURE: Canntab Therapeutic is an Equity.Guru marketing client
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