Medical Marijuana Is Evolving To Create New Opportunities For Investors
December 19 2018 - 8:35AM
InvestorsHub NewsWire
Medical
Marijuana Is Evolving To Create New Opportunities For
Investors
Coral Gables, FL -- December 19, 2018
-- InvestorsHub NewsWire -- The landscape for
healthcare as we know it will most likely look very different a
year from now. New advancements in healthcare technology and
the advent of legalized medical marijuana have raised the stakes
for companies aiming to capture market share. And everyone from
Big Pharma to beverage and tobacco
companies are vying for a seat at the table.
In a recent update
from Aurora Cannabis (NYSE: ACB), the company cited
its growing patient base. Aurora logged an increase in its active
registered patients for medical cannabis, resulting in a jump of
250% to 67,484. During these early stages of market growth
it’s important for investors to note that the healthcare market
will no longer be dominated by Big Pharma alone and the pool of new
cannabis patients will likely grow as the industry
expands.
The global medical marijuana market
will touch $55.0 billion by 2024; according to a new research study
published by Global Market Insights, Inc*. The report explains that
growing demand for marijuana application in the treatment of
chronic pain caused by neurological disorders, cancer, HIV/AIDS,
and arthritis will help drive the global market
growth.
This trend has echoed
across borders as well. In Canada, the pharmacy industry is
jockeying for position as well. Shoppers, Lovell Drugs and
PharmaChoice have signed supply deals with major cannabis
producers yet few are taking full advantage of the play on medical
marijuana. Other than Aurora, Canopy Growth
(NYSE: CGC) (TSX: WEED) has also focused on
growing its patient base. The company recorded its
registered medical patients at 84,400, which increased by 34%
year-over-year.
Building from the
ground up can be difficult in today’s climate and knowing this,
other companies are making a play at mergers and acquisitions to up
the ante on patient exposure for medical cannabis. Premier Health Group (OTC: PHGRF) (CSE:
PHGI) for instance, has taken this approach.
Earlier this year the company acquired HealthVue. With this
acquisition, Premier was able to instantly enter the primary care
clinic and potentially lucrative healthcare technology
business.
HealthVue is a group
of four Greater Vancouver based fully integrated, paperless and
electronic medical record based medical clinics with a 10-year
history, 22 healthcare professionals and over 100,000 active
patients. Further to this, Premier Health
Group (OTC: PHGRF) (CSE: PHGI) has gone steps further.
First, Premier signed a binding Letter of Intent to
acquire a Vancouver, British Columbia based pharmacy. The
Company expects the acquisition to close in or about Q1-19.
To add to this, Premier signed a binding LOI to acquire all of
the outstanding securities of Cloud Practice Inc.
The significance of
this second LOI involves the products that a successful acquisition
would bring into the company. Cloud’s Juno EMR system is currently
used by 287 clinics, over 3,000 licensed practitioners, 1,500 staff
and 2,870,000 registered patients. Its ClinicAid processes upwards
of $30,000,000 in payments to over 3000 health providers on a
monthly basis. Though they are still in the letters of intent
phase, if completed both of these would essentially add to
immediate revenue opportunities and an expanded patient base of
nearly 3 million to dwarf that of its industry
competition.
There were 269,500
registered cannabis patients through December 2017, according to
data released by Health Canada. Considering that 2018 marks the
first year that cannabis is fully legal in Canada, awareness of the
drug has surely increased and could end up sparking even more
patient growth in years to come.
In other news,
cannabis company Tilray (NASDAQ: TLRY) opened up a new
opportunity for Big Pharma to get its feet wet in the cannabis
industry. On December 18, Tilray signed a global partnership with a
division of Swiss drug giant Novartis
(NYSE: NVS) to develop and
distribute its medical marijuana in legal jurisdictions
around the world.
Tilray Chief
Executive Officer Brendan Kennedy said in a phone interview, “If a
product comes into a pharmacy with the Sandoz logo co-branded on
it, or if a pharmaceutical sales rep is talking to a physician
about a product that’s branded as Tilray and Sandoz, it lends
credibility to that product.”
With new initiatives
beginning in places like Canada and proposed market expansion
happening with things like the US Farm Bill, the legal cannabis
industry will certainly be a focus for investors heading into 2019.
As the excitement surrounding recreational marijuana has caught
attention, it may be the medical side of the industry that secures
a larger market share.
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*Global Market
Insights Report: https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/medical-marijuana-market
SOURCE: MarijuanaStocks.com
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