Cronos Group, Ginkgo Bioworks Modify Agreement To Speed Up Commercialization of Cultured Cannabinoids

Cannabinoid company Cronos Group Inc. CRON CRON is amending its previous partnership agreement with Ginkgo Bioworks, Inc., a company involved in cell programming.

The amendment allows Cronos to start commercializing products with cultured cannabinoids before meeting the initially set productivity goals. At the same time, the company will work on reaching originally stated efficiency and cost targets.

This means that Cronos’ cultured cannabinoid products will be the first to market in Canada, providing the company with important feedback in terms of consumers’ opinions, which will help it further develop new products.

The company projects it will reach its final productivity target for CBG before September, which was announced earlier.

The agreement change comes on the heels of Cronos Fermentation obtaining a processing and a CRA license. Following this announcement, Cronos Fermentation will commence commercial production of CBG on June 4th.

“Beginning commercial production demonstrates the significant progress underway with our Ginkgo partnership and the competitive benefits we see in being first to market with innovative consumer products,” said Kurt Schmidt, President and CEO of Cronos Group. “Cannabis holds many unique compounds with a wide range of potential use cases and benefits. By leveraging Ginkgo’s research platform and our fermentation manufacturing capabilities, we believe we have disruptive technology that can deliver rare cannabinoids at scale and elevate the consumer experience.”

Jason Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Ginkgo, added that “biological manufacturing is unlocking access to important cannabinoids that can be scaled up and produced reliably, consistently and economically. We look forward to continuing our work with Cronos to facilitate innovation bringing this powerful technology to the cannabis industry.”

Cronos’ shares were trading 1.52% higher at $8.69 per share at the time of writing.

Photo by CRYSTALWEED cannabis on Unsplash