Little Green Pharma will provide medicine to France – free of charge – as part of the country’s experimental medicinal cannabis program.
The company has been named as the main supplier of two CBD-dominant oil products in partnership with pharmaceutical firm, Intsel Chimos.
It will also be the alternate supplier of a balanced CBD/THC oil product for the tw0-year trial.
Althea, meanwhile, will be the alternate supplier to LGP of the most CBD-dominant oil product.
LGP managing director Fleta Solomon said: “We are very proud of our partnership’s success in the French national tender and see this tender win as strong evidence of LGP successfully implementing its export-led global sales strategy and demonstrating the benefits of Australian Good Manufacture Practices (GMP) quality manufacturing in global pharmaceutical markets.
“We believe the trial will demonstrate the partnership’s credibility and reliability to the French medical community, giving both companies a significant competitive advantage once medicinal cannabis is legalised in France.
“I’d like to congratulate both the Intsel Chimos and LGP teams for their tireless efforts in developing a world-leading bid for the tender. We trust this marks the beginning of a long and rewarding partnership as we look to grow and cement our reputation among French patients and prescribers as a world-class medicinal cannabis supplier.”
Other producers involved in the French trial, which will provide medicinal cannabis to 3,000 patients, include Tilray, Israeli firm Panaxia Pharmaceutical Industries and Aurora.
The launch of the pilot scheme, and selection of suppliers by France’s National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products, has been a long time coming, having originally been flagged in 2019.
In September, a parliamentary committee urged the government to stop dragging its feet.
“It’s time that France emerged from the dark ages concerning cannabis, which is a drug but can also be a medicine,” the chief author of the report, Jean-Baptiste Moreau, was quoted as saying.
“For patients today, it is unbearable to have to wait a little longer.”
