Alta Flora: A Startup in a New Market

We often talk about the failures of the cannabis industry because products aren’t carried to market. Gavin argues that it’s not the fault of the regulators, but a failure that falls on the sector’s shoulders. He believes our industry needs to learn how to speak the language of the medical sector. What Gavin has learned from spending time with patients is that they know above everyone else about their condition, their bodies, and how they react to cannabis. Gavin founded Alta Flora to allow them to harness data in order to speak the language of the regulators.

The focus of the startup is improving the quality of life for patients. His eyes glint as he pulls out his phone and walks me through the Alta Flora app. As an exclusive partner to the DrugScience Twenty21 Project, Gavin and his team have built an app that logs all these data points. Patients log their data every time they medicate: Alta Flora collects that information through an app on the type of product, where they get it from, how they take it, how they consume it, and the reason for consumption. After the patient is finished medicating, a second entry is timestamped, and more data is extracted, such as the side effects of the medicine.

Patient advocate Lucy Stafford took part in a panel discussion and Q&A on behalf of Alta Flora.

Gavin’s goal is to correlate this consumption data to the quality of life data that the NHS understands. Patients use the app to fill out questions asking how much pain they’re in, and how happy they are. A quality of life score is given, which can be correlated with the data taken from their medication. With these two data sets, Alta Flora can approach regulators with data and speak in a language they understand to show them how the medication affects a patient’s quality of life. As Gavin says, “we’re speaking the language of the regulators now.”