British cannabis-derived medicines company GW Pharma is planning to gear up its plant growing and processing operations in the UK over the next year.

The firm, which switched a listing on London’s junior market Aim for New York’s Nasdaq last year, where it has a market value of $2.6bn (£2bn), is committing to expanding in the UK.

It grows several tons of specially-modified cannabis plants a year – which have had the chemicals that result in a high genetically edited out – in British Sugar’s 44-acre greenhouse in Norfolk. It then processes and purifies the plant material in the UK to make medicines, mostly for export to the massive US market.