Hint: inadequate decarboxylation

“The idea of having a bag of weed and then going to smoke it… patients and physicians, at large, are never going to accept that practice as true medicine,” says Har Grover, CEO and chairman of Scientus Pharma, when explaining the company’s focus on non-smokable products during a facility tour in late November.

A strategy, perhaps, not too far from the truth, since consumption of medical cannabis oils in Canada has been on a steady rise: the amount of cannabis oils in LPs’ inventories rose from 20,802 kg in April 2018 to 47,803 kg in September 2018, as reported by Government of Canada.

With cannabis oils, however, there is a challenge. When it comes to smoking or vaping, cannabinoids are automatically activated when heated—during a process called decarboxylization—turning CBDA into CBD, or THCA into THC, a conversion crucial for desired results both medically or recreationally.

But when it comes to cannabis oils, since there’s often no heat involved during consumption, it’s important that oil be adequately decarboxylated as part of the manufacturing process.

Turns out: most often it’s not. At least that’s what’s come to light based on an ongoing research conducted by Scientus Pharma, a biopharmaceutical company based in Whitby, Ont. When taking into account the money spent on medical cannabis—Statistics Canada reports about $836 million was spent in the third quarter of 2018—“you have to make sure the cannabinoids are fully active, otherwise you are not delivering the product, whether it’s oil or capsule or any other dosing form,” Grover told The GrowthOp.

In samples gathered from 56 patients, the study uncovered different levels of decarboxylation across various brands of medical cannabis. As part of the research design, the samples were anonymized and researchers were blinded to the samples to avoid introducing bias.

With the study expected to conclude in late 2019, “the data could possibly be unblinded in the future,” say the doctors who conducted the study, Dr. Hance Clarke, director of pain services and medical director of the Pain Research Unit at Toronto General Hospital, and Dr. Lakshmi Kotra, Director at the Center for Molecular Design and Preformulations at the University Health Network, Senior Scientist at UHN and Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at University of Toronto.

Name of the game: decarboxylation

Even though Scientus Pharma doesn’t launch its products until next year—cannabis oils and capsules only—Grover has no concerns when it comes to missing out on the face of first-mover’s advantage. “Everyone talks about the first-mover advantage, but first-mover advantage makes sense if you can protect it through patents, trade secrets or setting an industry standard. We’ve had our first patent approved; we have several others that are in process. If we do things the right way, we can become an industry standard on extraction,” he said.

In early December, Scientus Pharma announced the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued a patent entitled, Decarboxylated Cannabis Resins, Uses Thereof and Methods of Making Same. “The patent provides intellectual property protection for Scientus’ decarboxylation method for extraction and activation of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient from natural cannabis plant materials,” the announcement noted. The company is focusing on its decarboxylation process with product that will be 99 percent activated for THC and CBD.

“Adequate decarboxylation (consistently reproduced) provides the potential to precisely dose patients, provide a predictable patient experience and evaluate cannabis in controlled clinical studies,” said Grover. “For a recreational user, that amount of variability is sometimes part of the experience. But if you are a 70-year-old cancer patient, you need real, effective medicine,” he explained.

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