Bod Australia is looking to cash in on expected demand for cannabis-based treatments through plans to import an oil used to help children with epilepsy.
The Australia-listed company will apply to the federal government soon under a special access scheme to import a cannabis oil from its Swiss partner, Linnea.
Bod chief executive Jo Patterson said the company had access to the world’s only consistent, reproducible, manufactured cannabis extract through Linnea.
The Sydney-based company expects to receive approval to import the extract in the coming months and it would then initially target sales at 25 approved prescribers of medicinal cannabis.
Ms Patterson said a standardised extract would ensure any commercialised product was classed as a pharmaceutical, giving the wider medical community confidence in the product.
“The cannabis space is really opening up and the regulatory rules in Australia are changing,” she said. “There is a lot of discussion and conversations that are going on around the role it can play in some significant illnesses where pharmaceuticals are falling short.”
Cannabis also has indications around cosmetics for problem skin and Bod has access, through Linnea, to a base cream, which is a topical application that Bod can import and distribute.
“Cannabis has also shown to behave as an anti-inflammatory, so we are looking to use it as a topical application for healthy sports-orientated people,” Ms Patterson said. She said cannabis also had a role to play in therapeutic uses like nausea, vomiting and sleep disorders. “We are also looking at indications around that area but that is a more complex path where you’re designing clinical trials,” she said.
Bod argues that the quality of the extract it has access to ensures a pharmaceutical standard of predictability and consistency, providing doctors and patients with a product that delivers consistent, reliable and reproducible results. Ms Patterson said medicinal cannabis fitted with Bod’s vision as a business as it was effectively a natural medicine, not a pharmaceutical. “We are great believers in the role natural medicines can play,” she said.
“We are putting the expertise and knowledge we have in natural medicines into cannabis, which is a normal and natural extension for our business.”
While medicinal cannabis is driving the company’s future growth, its main focus is on distributing, and manufacturing, natural medicines and skincare brands such as Dr Roebucks, Bioeffect and Pommade Divine.
“Our path to market is through pharmacies, which have the highest share of skincare sales in Australia,” Ms Patterson said.
She said an aim was to bring the rigour of pharmaceuticals to natural medicines: “So many products say ‘natural’ but if you look at the ingredients they are not. We want to add rigour to natural medicine so we can provide real solutions to people that don’t have the contrary indications that a pharmaceutical has.”
Ms Patterson said while the main focus was increasing its distribution around Australia, China was emerging as an expansion option. “We really are focused on getting our home ground right and exploding into those distribution channels, which will be the springboard into China.”
BDA Price at posting:
18.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
