Big Pharma Studies Individual Cannabinoids to Help Develop Strains for Specific Ailments

Along with the entire nation, Big Pharma is accepting and embracing cannabis in research and product development. Currently, there are a number of Big Pharma corporations that are dumping millions of dollars into research and development of cannabis medicines. Veritas Pharma Inc. has recently announced that the company has initiated a grand research process and is progressing toward identifying potentially new therapeutic strains of cannabis and cannabis-derived pharmaceuticals.

With the acquisition of Dr. Donald Carlow onto the Board of Directors of Veritas, Dr. Carlow is heading up and furthering the progress of Veritas’ new strains for treatment of cancer pain and chemotherapy-induced emesis. His skills and experience are bound to help this particular corporation have a better handle on pharmacology, agriculture and clinical insight.

According to PR Newswire, Veritas is investing in Cannevert Therapeutics Ltd., a Vancouver company made up of academics from the University of British Columbia. Their goal is to study individual cannabinoids within the plant, in hopes of discovering or creating new cannabis strains for specific disease conditions. Cannevert is also attempting to match much of this money with the help of academic-industry grants as well as scientific tax credits.

Cannavert recently received a Health Canada exemption to legally purchase cannabis from a specific supplier for research purposes. The company is now legally allowed to conduct chemical and pharmacological screenings and assays to study the therapeutic potential and properties found in a large variety of cannabis strains and cultivars. Veritas and Cannevert want to protect potential candidate strains through patents and plant breeder’s rights. In a press release, Veritas CEO Lui Franciosi confirmed the corporate-wide excitement about the research in this new field. “We are extremely excited now to see that, with Health Canada exemption and arrival of initial group of cannabis strains, our work has begun. We believe Veritas’ progress is well within our initial set timeline,” he said.

Along with Insys Therapeutics, Inc. and GW Pharmaceuticals, the research and development of cannabis-based pharmaceuticals is progressing at a steady pace—what this means for the natural medicine of whole plant cannabis is unknown, but it is certainly nice to see corporate America joining in the acceptance of cannabis as medicine after decades of prohibition and “reefer madness” in this country.