In a white, sterilized laboratory on the outskirts of Uruguayan capital Montevideo, biochemist Javier Varela and his team are carefully cultivating plants for a booming multibillion-dollar global market in medical cannabis.
The company Varela works for, Fotmer Life Sciences, has just made the first commercial shipment of medical cannabis from Latin America, 10 kg (22 lb) of dried flowers with high levels of active ingredient THC destined for patients in Australia.
The small but landmark export underscores the country’s push into the burgeoning market for legal cannabis, that has medical uses including helping cancer patients manage chronic pain or treating spasms associated with multiple sclerosis.
“Our goal is to create a billion-dollar industry here in Uruguay in the next five to seven years,” Jordan Lewis, chief executive of Fotmer Life Sciences, told Reuters at the Montevideo lab. The firm soon hopes to announce shipments to the European Union, where Germany is the key market, he added.
Read more at reuters.com