Apollon Formularies, a medical cannabis company with treatment and research facilities in Jamaica, has announced the official opening of its International Cancer and Chronic Pain Institute (ICCPI). The institute will provide complementary and alternative treatment with cannabis-based products not only to domestic patients but to cancer sufferers from other countries as well.
The overseas demand for cannabinoid medicine has been so great that a few weeks after its opening, ICCPI has already admitted its second patient from the UK.
Dr. Stephen Barnhill, Apollon’s founder and CEO, earlier revealed that some of the companies formulations had shown up to 100% efficacy in killing tumors in pre-clinical trials.
The tests were run by an independent third party, a US-based laboratory BIOENSIS. The lab used the so-called 3D cell cultures which are globular structures of cancer tissue. To successfully kill cancerous cells, a medicine has to first penetrate the structure and destroy it from the inside—a scenario resembling a real-world one.
A comprehensive license allows Apollon to work with all kinds of cannabinoid products, including those that contain THC, the plant’s main psychoactive substance. Dr. Barnhill believes that THC is an important part of the therapeutic action of cannabis whose dozens of cannabinoids and other compounds can provide a holistic, or synergetic, effect.
The research team at Apollon works with different whole-plant preparations, with varying ratios of active chemicals that can be manipulated through selection, breeding, and other methods. The BIOENSIS experiments have indeed demonstrated that different mixes have different efficacy in killing tumors in vitro.
Studies like this are important as the medical cannabis industry is moving from anecdotal evidence to testable and reproducible pre-clinical and clinical trials. According to Dr. Barnhill, sectors such as cannabis oil can become huge multi-billion-dollar markets, and having the research data can make Apollon’s products stand out among their generic peers.
The company has already a working facility in Negril, Jamaica, where a group of oncologists, surgeons, and general practitioners treat the country’s cancer and chronic pain patients with their proprietary cannabis formulations. With this facility and the new Institute in the country’s capital Kingston, the team is also hoping to start a series of clinical trials and has applied to the Ministry of Health for permissions.
Last year, Apollon Formularies got its listing on the Aquis Exchange in the UK (ticker AQSE:APOL) and has currently announced its plans to trade on the US OTCQB, a mid-tier marketplace for OTC securities. The company hopes that expanding to the American stock market in this way will attract stakeholders who want to invest in cannabis.
The CBD oil and medical cannabis industries are burgeoning sectors with a double-digit projected CAGR for the current decade. In the UK, the law that legalized the therapeutic use of the plant in 2018 has created an opportunity for growth. However, the country’s cannabis policy is criticized as unnecessarily restrictive.
It is estimated that Great Britain has about 1.4 million medical cannabis users, but most of them get their medicine illegally. There are only 10,000 Brits who can obtain cannabis and cannabis-derived products through legitimate channels.