Article content continued

At this early stage, the Tilray-Sandoz partnership is mostly a sales exercise, with Sandoz Canada lending its name, national sales force and clout with regulators to Tilray’s existing product slate.

Going forward, however, Robidoux said Sandoz Canada could take a more active role in research and development.

“We need to review all of the current studies or research that they’ve done, and then (we’ll see) where do we move from there,” said Robidoux.

Over the past few years the number of registered medical marijuana patients in Canada has increased rapidly. At the end of December, there were nearly 270,000 patients registered with Health Canada.

Research, however, has not kept pace with interest in the drug as a treatment for illnesses ranging from insomnia to epilepsy.

Ultimately it will be research, more than branding, that helps marijuana become a mainstream medical product,said Marc Wayne, chief executive of Canopy Health Innovations Inc., a subsidiary of Canopy Growth Corp. that focuses on developing clinical products.

“It’s easy to put out a product in a capsule form and sell it,” said Wayne. “You’re not answering the other part of the equation, which is what doctors really want, which is how much of that consistent dose should I be giving my patients, in what levels, how many times a day, and what ratio of different cannabinoids should I be giving them and for what particular indication.”

Even with the involvement of major pharmaceutical players such as Sandoz, Canadian cannabis companies are still several years away from getting the go-ahead from Health Canada to make health claims for a marijuana products, said Wayne. That requires several stages of testing, including large-scale clinical trials.