MediPharm CEO: Health Canada Regulations a New Opportunity in Canadian Cannabis

MediPharm Labs (TSXV:LABS,OTCQX:MEDIF,FWB:MLZ) CEO Pat McCutcheon joined the Investing News Network to give an overview of his company’s progress in Canada over the past year.

During the interview, McCutcheon touched on the company’s financial results for 2018, which was the first year of audited financials for MediPharm Labs. The company has already seen impressive sales this year, with projections for another strong quarter. According to McCutcheon, MediPharm Labs maintains a strict quality agreement that guarantees all of its products are up to Health Canada’s standards.

As MediPharm looks forward to 2019, the company sees an opportunity in the Canadian marketplace as new regulations are expected to establish a legal cannabis edibles market. According to McCutcheon, MediPharm Labs will also continue to look abroad to countries like Australia and Germany in order to reach new markets and expand its customer base.

Below is a transcript of our interview with MediPharm CEO Pat McCutcheon. It has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Investing News Network: What do MediPharm Labs’ 2018 financials tell you about the company’s progress?

MediPharm CEO Pat McCutcheon: We’re really excited to release these recent financials. We just did just over C$10 million in our first month of sales, which represents a C$10 million quarter. This is our first annual audited financials. For the extraction-based industry, we did just over C$2 million of adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, which is really exciting.

INN: How does MediPharm Labs select its suppliers?

PM: MediPharm puts our suppliers through various strict regimens to identify whether or not they can adhere to our quality agreement. Ensuring that we have suppliers that can meet and deliver a product that is pesticide free, bacteria and mold free is extremely important and it’s the only way that we can actually adhere to the GMP manufacturing process at our facility.

INN: How will the upcoming changes to Health Canada’s existing regulations affect MediPharm Labs?

PM: The new regulations actually broaden the opportunity for MediPharm Labs to sell into, now, an edible market. The edible markets will allow for vapes, new edible products and the opportunity for consumer package grid companies to come to the space. We’re really excited to execute on our private label platform and its new market regulatory change gives us that opportunity.

INN: What are MediPharm’s aspirations outside of Canada? Does the company have a long-term global strategy?

PM: Our first international expansion opportunity is in Australia. Australia was a perfect place for us to start outside of Canada for a number of reasons. One, the similarities to the Health Canada regime’s regulatory application process. Two, the opportunity to access large volumes of low-cost supply because of such great growing conditions. And three, because it is very quickly increasing its consumer base for medical cannabis products.

We are currently well down the path to approval with our EU GMP certification, which is going to give us the opportunity to export to the European countries, mainly focused on Germany due to its quickly growing consumer base for medical cannabis products. We’re looking at other areas of the world where we can continue to source large volumes of low-cost supply and Latin America is the best opportunity we see after Australia.

INN: Can you tell us more about the research and development MediPharm is conducting at the moment?

PM: MediPharm Labs is executing a number of different research initiatives, whether it be formulations, new extraction technology for secondary extraction and distillation or isolation. Our fractionation project really creates the foundation of our opportunity to make the active pharmaceutical ingredient for different medical products that can be sold globally.

This interview is sponsored by MediPharm Labs (TSXV:LABS,OTCQB:MEDIF, FWB:MLZ). This interview provides information which was sourced by the Investing News Network (INN) and approved by MediPharm Labs in order to help investors learn more about the company. MediPharm Labs is a client of INN. The company’s campaign fees pay for INN to create and update this interview.

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