Bedrocan's product sold in Europe (Photo: Sensi Seeds)
Last week, Bedrocan Canada was granted a license to sell medical cannabis under the country’s new program.
Bedrocan Canada was formed by Bedrocan BV, the sole supplier of medical marijuana in Holland and other European countries. It is also now one of 8 companies to be approved by Health Canada under the new program.
The program, called the MMPR, introduces a commercial industry for medical marijuana. Beginning April 1, some 40,000 Canadians will be required to purchase their medicine from companies like Bedrocan, instead of growing it themselves.
Despite Bedrocan’s operations in Europe, the company says it has much to look forward to in Canada. We spoke to CEO of Bedrocan Canada Marc Wayne about the company’s history and what’s in store for Canadians.
Q: How did Bedrocan get started?
Bedrocan started as a family business and it’s still run by two brother-in-laws in Holland. They’ve been in the agricultural business in the north of Holland for 30 years. They got into the production of cannabis seeds when cannabis seeds were legal in the 90s in Holland.
They moved into cannabis production when the government was looking for producers of medical marijuana for the Dutch program. Two companies were selected, but one company fell off, and Bedrocan became the sole provider.
Q: What does Bedrocan do today in Europe?
Bedrocan services all the patients in the medical cannabis program in Holland, which is around 3,000. The Dutch program distributes through pharmacies, so all of Bedrocan product is distributed through the pharmacy system.
It’s also covered by the largest health insurer in Holland, but that’s just been for the past couple years. Those are the type of initiatives we’re going to try and work on in Canada, because there’s precedent over there.
Tjalling Erkelens, CEO of Bedrocan Canada’s parent company Bedrocan BV (Photo: Bedrocan)
Q: So Canadians can hope for insurance coverage?
One of the initiatives we want to take on is how to get insurance coverage in Canada similar to Holland, to enable cost coverage for patients as much as possible.
Bedrocan product is pharmaceutical grade and standardized from batch to batch. We’re hoping that type of quality will help in the argument to the insurance companies, so they know the product they’re covering isn’t different every time.
We believe standardization and quality are, obviously, top priority.
Q: How does Canada’s MMPR program compare to Europe?
The European market for Bedrocan is strongly influenced by government and government regulations.
The MMPR is the next step, in our opinion, in the development of cannabis becoming a more common medicine in Canada, produced and distributed by professional companies.
The MMPR also allows for more competition compared to Europe. The European production is organized usually through contractual agreements between government and producers, which limits the development of a good market model for medicinal cannabis to mature.
Bedrocan BV’s growing facility (Photo: Bedrocan)
But the MMPR puts physicians in a role to give patients access to cannabis like in Europe. That’s a similarity.
Overall, medical cannabis is becoming more of a private industry in Canada, which should hopefully help with pricing in the long run. There’s more competition, so perhaps pricing will come down over time for the patients.
Q: Will the MMPR help cannabis become more accepted in Canada?
You can already see, since the regulations came out, how much more mainstream it’s become in Canada as a topic.
As more companies get involved, and more visibility gets involved, and more people accept medicinal cannabis as an option, it should help provide better access for everybody.
Source Leaf Science
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