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UK: Little light confusion over cannabis drug date
Heather Tomlinson The Guardian
Thursday 22 Jan 2004 The legal sale of drugs derived from cannabis has been delayed until the summer, six months later than expected. GW Pharmaceuticals, which specialises in developing clinical drugs from the plant, published its final results yesterday. It admitted the regulator's decision on whether to approve its spray-administered Sativex drug has been pushed back and is now expected in the second quarter of this year. It should be on sale a few months after that. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency has been studying the drug for the treatment of multiple sclerosis and pain since March. GW chairman Geoffrey Guy blamed the wait on a paperwork backlog at the regulator and said "it hasn't been delayed ... we got the expectations wrong". GW also revealed that its loss had fallen from UKP12.1m to UKP9.6m, mainly due to income from a commercial agreement with German rival Bayer, which will market Sativex. The company said it had "considerable quantities of stocks of active raw materials" in preparation for an approval from the regulator. Mr Guy said at any one time the company had 15,000 cannabis plants in its facilities and produces about 60 tonnes a year at present. He said recent concerns over the mental health effects of cannabis were not relevant to the products. "One has to be clear, it is very different from the heavy daily use of recreational drugs by under-18s." Sativex is administered by a spray in the mouth. Although it has the cannabis ingredients that produce a "high", the doses should be too low to have such an effect, Mr Guy said. The company said yesterday that it has nine late-stage trials under way on cannabis-derived products for cancer pain and symptoms of MS. The five trials where results are pending are due to report this year, the company said. It is also looking at treatments for diabetes and Crohn's disease. GW is developing a dispensing system for methadone, a treatment for heroin addicts, but it said because it was concentrating on Sativex, the system had fewer resources allocated to it. The group raised UKP19m last year by placing new shares with investors, contributing to a cash pile of UKP32m at its financial year's end in September.
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