Most Important Medical Potential Of Marijuana? Cannabis For Pain Relief Says Biotech CEO

Over the last few years, medical marijuana has experienced significant

breakthroughs across Europe as many countries recognize its benefits with several countries having decriminalized the possession of small amounts. Some three years ago, the European Court ruled against restrictions on CBD commerce, confirming that it is not a narcotic.

And now, all eyes are on Germany, which is projected to be one of the largest marijuana markets in Europe. Germany’s pivotal vote on legalization has faced several delays and has now been postponed for 2024, progress seems imminent. For that reason, many cannabis-focused companies are looking to be among the first to position themselves in the German marijuana market.

One such company is SOMAÍ Pharmaceuticals, an EU-GMP European pharmaceutical and biotech firm that specializes in the global distribution of cannabinoid-containing pharmaceuticals globally. The company

recently entered into two partnerships to strengthen its position in Germany. The first is a two-year distribution agreement with Canymed GmbH, a pharmaceutical wholesaler specializing in medical marijuana distribution across Germany. The second is with a marijuana-focused healthcare brand Grünhorn, under which the two companies will co-create an exclusive CBD-based pharmaceutical product line in Germany.

Benzinga wanted to learn more about all this so we reached out to SOMAÍ Pharmaceuticals’ founder, chairman of the board and CEO Michael Sassano, an early investor in the U.S. cannabis industry who is a recognized expert in developing large-scale cannabis infrastructures and for creating advanced pharmaceutical cannabinoid products.

“Somai offers the most complete and diverse range of pharmaceutical grade cannabis products, with over 50 SKUs produced to date,” Sassano told Benzina. He added that the company continues to push the boundaries with even more future releases to better serve patients' needs.

When it comes to quality assurance in pharmaceutical cannabis products, there is a range of standards, Sassano explained, highlighting that EU-GMP pharmaceutical is the gold standard of global quality. He noted that there are other quality standards like cGMP in Canada as well as other GMPs for pharmaceuticals.

Biggest Medical Potential Of Marijuana 

“Pain categories have always held the most promise due to the effects of CB1 and CB2 receptors, but variations of sleep indications and indications like endometriosis, as well as common stress and anxiety, are interesting applications that if set up correctly, may result in clinical positive efficacy,” according to Sassano.

While the industry is often broken into two markets – medical and recreational, Sassano believes that the two are closer than they seem.

“In the early days of the US industry, cannabis was considered a medicinal product and quickly became recreational. But for 90% of cannabis consumers, they may not specifically call cannabis medicine, but they are all using cannabis to cure some indication whether extreme or mild.” 

Cannabis In Europe: ‘Complexities Of Governments’

Aside from Germany, among the hottest recent cannabis developments, beginning with Ukraine legalizing medical marijuana, the Netherlands’ launch of legal cannabis sales and Switzerland studying the regulated sale of adult-use products. And this is not all, Sassano notes that smaller countries like Albania and the Czech Republic have announced intentions to explore recreational cannabis legalization.

The biggest cannabis markets in Europe are “Germany, Israel, then second places like the UK and Italy, with smaller countries like Switzerland and Poland entering the space and smaller programs like Malta and Luxembourg,” Sassano said. “As well as many countries waiting on Germany like Portugal and almost every other EU market. The hold-up is governments that are partially on the side of adult votes and partly on the side of power lobby groups like big pharma. Imagine in Spain you can go to one of 1400 social clubs and get garage-grown cannabis, but if you want legal medical cannabis products you can't buy. These are the complexities of governments, not the people.”

The Three Levels

Sometimes it is hard to make both recreational and medical marijuana markets co-exist, due to the strict medical regulations, the challenges of obtaining a medical marijuana card, or finding a doctor familiar with the plant’s healing properties. Sassano believes there are three levels that can coexist if regulated properly.

Those three levels include “pharmaceuticals like Epidiolex, Sativex, Marisol, Dronabinol, etc., the herbal medicines prescribed by doctors that you see in global markets like Germany and Australia, and the recreational markets like you see in the US and Canada. Pharmaceuticals will all have their place. Medicinal products will mimic recreational products to some degree and have a higher quality standard. And pure recreational will be accepted in very liberal societies that want to combat illicit markets. There is a time and place for the last two which develop over time.”

SOMAÍ aims to continue to push the boundaries of pharmaceutical applications by “melting pharmaceutical medicines to the consumer's preferences as they change.” In the end of the day, “cannabis is not a one-size-fits-all all models that have been requested. It’s a try-and-find-what-works for you model, and the alternatives with big pharma aren’t as interesting,” Sassano concluded.

Photo: Benzinga edit with images by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash and OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay