Australian grower Little Green Pharma (LGP) has recently acquired a Denmark-based fully operational, GMP cultivation facility previously owned by Canopy Growth Corporation. “Business has been going very well for us,” says Fleta Solomon, managing director at Little Green Pharma. “Expanding our production was the logical next step for us. We only had to find the most efficient way to do it.”
Rising demand
Little Green Pharma has already been exporting medical cannabis to Europe for quite some time. Yet, the demand has shown no sign of slowing down. Actually, quite the opposite. “Europe is one of our most important markets,” Fleta continues. “And the demand just keeps growing so we needed to expand. Initially, we had planned to expand our Australian facility. However, that would have taken at least a couple of years in terms of construction and permitting.”
Fleta Solomon, managing director at Little Green Pharma
Getting to Denmark
That’s when LGP started looking around, and their eyes landed on Denmark. “We found that Canopy Growth were shutting their Danish asset,” Fleta continues. “Here, there was a facility that was already operational, and could give us 20 tons of biomass immediately, in a GMP certified environment. All of that was delivered to us on a very cost-effective basis.” This is not only because LGP bought the facility for only CAD$1m per ton, but also because LGP is able to retain the existing team and hence the experience gained in one of the strictest medical cannabis markets. “This is a world-class facility,” Fleta says. “In there, you have three years of experience in producing cannabis-based medicines in an EU-GMP recognized framework. This kind of experience is very hard to find. Then, we merge our own Australian experience, and you get an incredible team of skills and knowledge that is unique and rare to find.”
Following a vision
The acquisition of the Canopy Growth asset is a demonstration of different business models that can be seen throughout the industry. “Canopy Growth was one of the first cannabis companies in the cannabis space with a large market cap,” Fleta observes. “Many well-funded companies purchased big assets to expand their footprint across the globe immediately. At Little Green Pharma, we decided to go for a different approach: we wanted to scale as the demand came in.” When the opportunity arose, the Denmark-based facility represented the perfect asset to add to LGP’s portfolio. “When designing post-harvest facilities, you need to validate the equipment and processes” she remarks. “Then, you need to prove a final stable medicine – and doing that takes plenty of time. However, in Denmark, we can immediately do this for finished flower medicines.”
There are also future exciting plans for the Denmark facility. “As the company grows with the aim of generating revenue, we will likely expand our production capabilities in each of our locations: we always had a vision of having an Australian-based facility to service the Oceania region, and an EU-based facility to service the EU. Our dream is finally taking shape.”
The immediate next step is indeed the integration of the two operations. “We were really fortunate in that our two cultures were remarkably similar,” says Fleta. “When speaking to the Danish team, it was very apparent the passion they have for helping people and producing high-quality medicines. This is exactly the vision we have always had since the inception of Little Green Pharma: to help improve the lives of people. Both facilities have different strengths and combining these places us as one of the larger purely medicinal cannabis players in the world.”
For more information:
Little Green Pharma
PO Box 690, West Perth WA 6872
+61 8 6280 0050
info@littlegreenpharma.com
littlegreenpharma.com