Marijuana Business Magazine - May-June 2018

whopping 1 million-square-foot operation, dubbed Aurora Nordic Cannabis, will be a fully automated facility based in Denmark. The new facility’s geographic positioning could make it one of Northern Europe’s biggest first movers in the MMJ space, meaning it could quickly turn into a dominant market force. While Alfred Pedersen & Son is licensed for the growing operation, Aurora’s existing unit in Germany will be charged with selling cannabis throughout the Scandinavian region. Company: Bedrocan International Line of Business: MMJ cultivation Headquarters: Veendam, Netherlands Why toWatch: A major producer of pharmaceutical-grade cannabis, Bedrocan International also has made significant strides in research and development of MMJ. Bedrocan produces full-flower medical marijuana for several international markets, including Italy, Germany, Fin- land, the Czech Republic and Australia.The company has 85 employees worldwide. It’s also leading a trend away from using street strain names, instead choosing to assign its own names to plants. According to the company, each strain is standardized based on pharmaceutical standards. In 2016, Canada’s largest marijuana producer, Canopy Growth, acquired Bedrocan Canada, a licensee of Bedrocan International. Bedrocan Canada then launched a large-scale clinical cannabis study to evaluate quality of life before and after medical cannabis use. Company: Bombay Hemp Co. Line of Business: Hemp, MMJ research Headquarters: Mumbai, India Why toWatch: Bombay Hemp Co., or BOHECO, last year won the first medical marijuana research license ever issued in India, the world’s sixth-largest economy. BOHECO’s research with India’s Council of Scientific and Industrial Research represents a rediscovery of sorts in a nation that lays claim to the world’s oldest marijuana market, with recorded cannabis use dating to 1000 B.C. BOHECO was created in 2013 by a group including former Deloitte executives to make hemp clothing, yarns and industrial textiles.The company’s B Label clothing line, mostly sold online, comes from hemp fibers grown in China and processed in India. More tantalizing is BOHECO’s work with medical marijuana; though limited to laboratory research now, medical marijuana in India represents a huge opportunity. The company attracted nearly $1 million in funding last year from investors, including the managing editor of Google India, and is poised to be first on the market if medical marijuana becomes available to some of India’s 1.3 billion residents. BOHECO is privately held, but the company claims it made about $39,000 last fiscal year on its clothing; greater profits are expected to materialize in future years, as the medical marijuana market emerges. Company: GW Pharmaceuticals/ Greenwich Biosciences Line of Business: Cannabis-based drugs Headquarters: London and Carlsbad, Calif. Why to Watch: This UK biopharma company – and its California-based subsidiary, Greenwich Biosciences – is poised to disrupt the U.S. cannabis industry.That’s because GW Pharmaceuticals is nearing U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the first cannabis-derived pre- scription medicine in the United States.The drug, Epidi- olex, treats rare types of epilepsy that don’t respond to other medications. That patient base isn’t huge, but FDA approval would be a seminal moment for the cannabis industry, because it would be the strongest endorsement yet from a department of the U.S. government that cannabis has medicinal value, despite marijuana’s classification as a drug with no medical use. GW Pharma has another cannabis-derived drug, Sativex, which treats multiple sclerosis symptoms and is approved for use in about 30 countries, though not in the United States. GW Pharmaceuticals’ industry potential inspires a mixture of awe and dread among many U.S. producers of cannabis- derived treatments. Many fear that the advent of an FDA- approved cannabis medicine could spell disaster for other producers of medical marijuana. When physicians have an option to prescribe cannabis, the thinking goes, what happens to doctors recommending marijuana that patients are free to acquire from any producer? GW Pharmaceuticals reported more than $19 million in revenue last fiscal year. GOING GL BAL May-June 2018 • Marijuana Business Magazine • 87