Sativex revenues for 2011: £29.6 million

[RainDog]

Last edited Thu Jan 5, 2012, 05:28 AM - Edit history (1)

but full year profits dropped. However, as GW Pharma enters into phase III trials for Sativex as a cancer pain treatment... well, let me just say that any of you with money to invest - if you make a killing in this market and didn't know about it before, please remember the poor...

Sativex is whole plant cannabis that contains about a 50/50 mix of Sativa and Ruderalis cannabis used for the treatment of MS. The Ruderalis offsets the euphoric effects of the Sativa to create a 1 to 1 THC to CBD ratio. In addition to THC and CBD, this whole-plant cannabis medicine (i.e. marijuana suspended in liquid spray form) contains terpenoids and flavonoids that are also properties of cannabis.

Sativex is sprayed under the tongue. When administered in this way, it takes effect faster than a pill. (Like the less-effective but legal synthetic THC marketed as Marinol for nausea.)

Cannabis medicine has an even faster effect if it is vaporized rather than suspended in liquid and sprayed under the tongue. However, this delivery system would be considered simply "marijuana" and, thus, has little to no likelihood of being made legal in the U.S. when it is so profitable for certain groups to maintain its illegality.

The U.S. has blocked legalization of Sativex in the U.S. because (other than the fact that it's marijuana) the medicine is delivered as a spray. The U.S. wants GW Pharma to make the delivery system of the spray limit the amount of Sativex that a patient may access.... yeah... stunning, isn't it? Take as many pain pills as you like, but limit the dosage of a medicine that is so safe there is no known dosage that can kill humans or animals.

No other country in the world demands this ridiculous "blocking" technology (which would drive up the cost of the same here if it were legalized.) Of course, the reality is that the DEA would have to reschedule cannabis in order to allow the sale of Sativex in the U.S. because this medicine is, again, marijuana. Currently, the U.S. federal govt. bureaucracies responsible for scheduling state that cannabis has no medical value. In spite of its legal use as a medicine elsewhere based upon a full complement of clinical trials for its use as a medicine for MS, the US bureaucracies are SO CORRUPT and SO SELF-SERVING they refuse to acknowledge what the rest of the world now does - that cannabis is a medicine.

http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/35947/gw-pharmaceuticals-says-sativex-sales-top-expectations-but-full-year-profit-drops-35947.html

Sativex sales jumped 59 percent to £4.4 million, while milestone income amounted to £5.3 million compared to £11.2 million a year earlier. The group’s cash position has increased from £25.2 million at the end of 2010 to £28.3 million.

Sativex sales were lifted by its launch in the UK, Germany, Spain and Denmark during the past year with GW expecting further approvals and launches in Europe in the current financial year.

The drug is expected to be launched in the Czech Republic, Italy, Sweden, and Austria in the coming months.

The group has also signed license agreements to commercialise Sativex in Australasia, Asia (excluding Japan and China), the Middle East and Africa.

GW Pharmaceuticals is also in phase III studies of cancer pain treatment that will begin in early 2012. The market for use of Sativex for cancer pain treatment is HUGE compared to the profitability of the creation and distribution of Sativex for MS.

"The goal of treating cancer pain is also important for GW because, if successful, it will mark the entry-point for Sativex into the all-important U.S. market"

Pretax profit in the prior year (2010) to Sept. 30 increased to 4.6 million pounds ($7.37 million) from 1.2 million pounds a year ago, as sales of Sativex jumped by 64 percent to 2.8 million pounds from 1.7 million pounds.

GW is working on the final-stage Phase III clinical trials of Sativex for cancer pain with Otsuka Pharmaceutical, its licensing partner in the United States.

http://www.cannabisni.com/uk-cannabis-news/1795-cannabis-drug-sativex-boosts-profits-at-gw-pharma

To highlight how FUCKING HYSTERICAL the issue of marijuana remains, GW Pharma grows cannabis in SECRET WAREHOUSES in rural areas of GB.

Here's a BBC Horizon excerpt on GW's grow warehouses.

The process by which GW Pharma creates the cannabis for Sativex is EXACTLY THE SAME as the way in which growers in, oh, CA or Oregon produce cannabis medicine - except on a much larger scale.

GW then does something that the guy who touts his cannabis oil in Canada does - GW suspends the cannabis - using the entire plant, stems and all, rather than just the buds, btw, in liquid, reduces this, then bottles in a spray. The reason they can patent Sativex, which is, afterall SIMPLY CANNABIS suspended in liquid, is the suspension and then the form of delivery in a spray bottle.

I swear I have NEVER seen any issue with so much outright corruption, lying and downright bullshit in the U.S. as the issue of cannabis scheduling and its subsequent criminalization. There are probably many others - I don't look at defense contracting often, but they, too get a slice of the federal WoD pie - the biggest slice, in fact.

If your state does not have legal medical marijiuana, you should ask your representatives to justify the taxpayer costs for this corruption at the highest levels of power in the U.S. knowing that it's very likely cannabis will be legal - at least for GW Pharma, by 2013.