Company opens $10m medicinal cannabis facility in Tasmania

A pharmaceutical company has opened a $10m medicinal cannabis production facility in Northern Tasmania with a loan from the state government. Minister for state growth Michael Ferguson said it was a ‘clever move’ and could ‘really help people’.

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PHARMACEUTICAL company Tasmanian Alkaloids has expanded it and the state’s medical cannabis production capacity with a new $10m facility officially opening on Wednesday.

Executive general manager Colin Ralph said the leading producer of alkaloid raw materials’ entry into the growing medicinal cannabis industry had been three years in the making as the business looked to diversify.

The new facility has the capacity to extract 90 tonne of cannabis biomass each year, which equates to about nine million bottles of medicine.

“Through this development, our medicinal cannabis capabilities are second to none and we now span everything from research and development, propagation, cultivation, extraction through to formulating bottling and all the analytics required for release of products to our customer and then onto the market,” Mr Ralph said.

Mr Ralph said the products would initially feed into the national supply chain, but would hopefully soon be able to be exported within the Asia Pacific region.

The $10m for the construction of the facility was loaned to Tasmanian Alkaloids by the state government “to stand up the investment”.

Tasmanian Alkaloids chief scientist in agricultural research and development, Greg Symons, in the company's new medical cannabis facility. Picture: PATRICK GEE

Minister for state Growth Michael Ferguson said medicinal cannabis products can “really help people”.

“It’s a very special opportunity for Tasmania to lend its support to people who are unwell and who need our support,” he said.

“It’s a clever move with the growing demand for medical grade cannabinoids in treating conditions where conventional medical treatments have failed or have been substandard

Medicinal cannabis products have been prescribed to 16 Tasmanians to date.

Mr Ferguson said clinical trials were underway “to assess the potential for medicinal medical cannabis products to treat these and other medical conditions”.

Tasmanian Alkaloids will employ 11 new full-time staff as a result of the project and a further 20 are expected to be indirectly employed through flow on benefits to the supply chain.