Qld medical cannabis firm appoints administrators
The first company in Australia licensed to cultivate medicinal cannabis has hit financial strife and is now under the control of administrators.
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Administrators have been appointed to the first company in Australia licensed to cultivate medicinal cannabis.
Sunshine Coast-based Tikun Oceana, formerly known as Medifarm, is now under the control of administrators from Cor Cordis.
The company was founded in 2015 by medical entrepreneur Adam Benjamin who exited the business more than two years ago and new management subsequently took over. He told The Courier-Mail in 2017 that he was motivated by an eight-year-old cancer sufferer whose parents had to illicitly obtain cannabis oil to relieve the symptoms of chemotherapy. The boy eventually died of the illness but not before being helped by the medicine.
The company changed its name to Tikun Oceania in 2020 to reflect its partnership with Israel’s Tikun Olam, one of the global leaders in the development of medicinal cannabis.
Calls to the Tikun office on Friday afternoon were not answered. Cor Cordis declined to comment.
Medifarm’s multimillion-dollar facility, in a top-secret location in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, was officially opened by the then federal health Minister Greg Hunt in 2019. The company had invested heavily in security at the site.
Medifarm claimed to be a pioneer in an industry expected to eventually be worth $200bn worldwide.
In October 2016, the Federal Government started a national licensing scheme for the growing and manufacture of medicinal cannabis and controls all its regulatory aspects.
In 2018, the company held a symposium at the University of the Sunshine Coast to educate medical professionals about the uses of medicinal cannabis and legal requirements.
The company said it was working with some of the world’s best cannabis plant strains developed after decades of research in Israel.
The prescription-only medicine is used to treat everything from pain relief for cancer and arthritis to epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.
According to a study from FreshLeaf Analytics, the value of the medicinal cannabis market in Australia reached $95m in 2020 but the growing number of operators, including an increasing number of ASX-listed firms, had depressed prices.
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Originally published as Qld medical cannabis firm appoints administrators
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