Earlier this yr, Greece grew to become the most recent EU nation to make medical hashish merchandise out there to sufferers.
In February 2024, Tikun Olam Europe, situated in Greece, grew to become the primary firm to supply completed medical hashish merchandise beneath prescription within the Greek market, and is poised to launch a string of recent merchandise within the coming months.
Tikun Olam Europe holds a robust heritage of Tikun Olam Israel which is basically accountable for defining the form of this nascent market, aiming to ‘set a benchmark for the medical hashish business’ to evolve from.
In response to the corporate’s CEO & Vice President of the Board, Nikos Beis, Greece ‘has created one of the vital superior medical hashish applications in Europe’ and, with the potential to increase to fulfill the unmet want of 1000’s sufferers, is about to turn out to be an thrilling new European hashish hub for buyers and companies alike.
‘Arduous work and persistence’
Greece was one of many earliest nations within the EU to maneuver in direction of establishing a medical hashish business, rescheduling it from a Schedule A to a Schedule D substance in 2017.
It’s evident that Greece’s 2017 declassification got here with out something by way of framework of laws. It was solely the next yr that the federal government made a agency dedication to establishing a medical hashish programme.
As Mr Beis defined to Enterprise of Hashish: “From the very starting we have been centered on our purpose and though there was an unclear regulatory atmosphere, we continued to speculate to execute excellence.”
Tikun Olam Europe had already seen the chance and dedicated to investing within the area, breaking floor on the State-of-the-art EU-GMP facility in a premise of 56,000 sq. meters .
This continued funding and dedication to the very best high quality requirements to its operations was aimed toward setting a high-water mark for the incoming business to stick to.
“We knew we needed to construct a state-of-the-art facility to set a benchmark for the medical hashish business, not just for Greece but in addition for Europe.
“It took lots of onerous work, persistence and dedication, because it was a really troublesome path to undertake however it was price each second.
“Though the trail was troublesome, it drove us to the place we are actually and it has been a fantastic success because it was obtained nicely by the market, authorities and healthcare professionals alike,” Mr Beis continued.
The Greek alternative
As a possible vacation spot for medical hashish companies, Greece now presents some important benefits over its neighbours.
Not solely there are decrease land, labour and power prices, but in addition its local weather is of course conducive to rising hashish.
Its geographical location additionally makes it enticing for corporations wishing to export to different nations, whereas it’s also a part of the European Medication Company (EMA), streamlining the potential worldwide alternatives.
Moreover, as Mr Beis explains: “Greece has invested significantly in creating its pharmaceutical business within the final 20 years, we additionally benefit from the aggressive benefit of getting a big pool of extremely expert pharmaceutical consultants.”
“Greece has created one of the vital superior medical hashish applications in Europe and each medical hashish product shall be categorized as a completed pharmaceutical product and shall obtain a Advertising Authorisation License by the Greek Nationwide Organisation for Medicines (EOF).
“Due to this fact, each product should bear full registration necessities in precisely the identical manner that different pharmaceutical merchandise are authorised, together with offering product improvement knowledge, analytical strategies, course of validation, stability danger testing and administration plans.
“This technique of authorisation supplies healthcare professionals with the reassurance and confidence to prescribe completed medical hashish merchandise for particular accredited indications, as they comply with the identical procedures they’re comfy with.”
The following step for the corporate, will likely be to finish the pipeline of the primary merchandise we wish to register and launch out there.
Elsewhere, the corporate is working to beat one last hurdle, the training of prescribing medical doctors, goals to determine a mannequin to ‘educate medical doctors, healthcare professionals and pharmacists that may be utilized to numerous different nations with related medical hashish frameworks.’
