GW Hits High as Bayer Snaps Up Cannabis Drug

[boulder]

Shares in GW Pharmaceuticals Plc, a British firm pioneering cannabis-based medicines, hit an all-time high on Wednesday as Germany's Bayer AG acquired rights to its first product.

 

The drugs and chemicals group will pay GW up to 25 million pounds ($41 million) for exclusive rights to market the drug in Britain, under the brand name Sativex. GW, which cultivates some 40,000 marijuana plants a year at a secret location in the English countryside, will also receive a significant share of sales.

 

The cannabis-based drug Sativex is sprayed into the mouth rather than smoked and is expected to be launched in the UK later this year, initially as a pain relief treatment for multiple sclerosis patients.

 

The British government has already indicated it is ready to alter rules governing the use of cannabis to allow doctors to prescribe GW's medicinal formulation.

 

Sativex is also being studied for treating pain caused by cancer and spinal cord injury, and GW is seeking approval to sell it in other European countries, where first sales are likely in 2004, according to Executive Chairman Geoffrey Guy.

 

Bayer has the option to negotiate marketing rights for other countries in Europe, as well as Canada. The United States, however, is not part of the deal and a launch in the world's largest pharmaceuticals market is at least two or three years away.

 

Guy told Reuters he was comfortable with analyst forecasts of peak annual sales of 250 million pounds in initial markets of Europe and Canada.

 

Shares in GW -- which were floated at 182 pence each two years ago -- hit a new peak of 250 pence on news of the deal before retracing to stand a penny up on the day at 233p by 1015 GMT. Bayer was off 3.7 percent at 16.52 euros in a weak market for pharmaceutical and chemical stocks.

 

Guy said Bayer, a mid-sized player in the global drugs business, was well-placed to optimise sales of its cannabis drug.

 

"They have a good market position which suits our types of products. They also, with their German origins, have a very deep understanding of natural medicines," he said.

 

Germany, unlike many countries, still has a significant pharmaceutical market based on plant-derived products. Bayer itself developed aspirin more than a century ago from willow bark.

 

Additional reporting by Sitaraman Shankar in Frankfurt

 

Newshawk: Ethan Russo M.D.

Source: Reuters

Author: Ben Hirschler, European Pharmaceuticals Correspondent

Published: May 21, 2003

[SoDrysBro]

i can slowly see this cannibus situation getting out of control what are these doctors/scientists thinking ? its great there getting behind the legal use and are trying to show it helps many people but these new sprays and stuff there trying to bring on the market will just destroy it i reakon, drugs always find away to the streets somehow and these new inhailers will be awesome for young drugos who got nothing better to do, no need to make a quick macgiver style bong anymore just grab some inhailers much easier, within a few years theres gonna be a huge black market for weed bigger then it ever was before, with so many new cannibus products.. maybe im just thinking to much into it but ahwel had to get that out of my head, am i thinking to far into this ?

[white_cluster]

i can slowly see this cannibus situation getting out of control what are these doctors/scientists thinking ? its great there getting behind the legal use and are trying to show it helps many people but these new sprays and stuff there trying to bring on the market will just destroy it i reakon, drugs always find away to the streets somehow and these new inhailers will be awesome for young drugos who got nothing better to do, no need to make a quick macgiver style bong anymore just grab some inhailers much easier, within a few years theres gonna be a huge black market for weed bigger then it ever was before, with so many new cannibus products.. maybe im just thinking to much into it but ahwel had to get that out of my head,   am i thinking to far into this ?

yeah I agree, I heard that american patients recieving Marinol usually swap it for buds as they dont like the paranoia, and pot smokers like it because it never levels out.

 

I love the name though. Sativex.