Rui Soares is the founder and CEO of Paralab Green, a leading company specialising in advanced technology for cannabis postharvest and cannabinoid extraction.
With over 30 years of experience in the highly regulated European pharmaceutical market, Rui led Paralab’s expansion into the medical cannabis sector, offering solutions tailored to EU-GMP compliance. Under his leadership, Paralab continues to innovate, providing cutting-edge tools and technologies for the cannabis industry.
Business of Cannabis sat down with Rui Soares to explore the cutting-edge technologies shaping the cannabis industry.
Can you discuss the main technical hurdles that cannabis labs encounter when trying to meet GMP standards across cultivation, extraction, and postharvest?
Cultivation is absolutely critical in the cannabis industry, and while it typically falls under GACP (Good Agricultural and Collection Practices), the focus shifts to GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) at later stages. Both frameworks share some key principles, particularly documentation and traceability. However, while documentation and traceability are important, they are not the most critical factors; a licensed producer with a strong quality team can often address deficiencies in these areas.
The truly critical factors in GMP compliance are avoiding cross-contamination and ensuring consistent production quality and yields. Equipment plays a vital role in both. First, equipment must be designed to prevent cross-contamination and be easily and efficiently cleaned. Second, it must deliver consistent quality and throughput during production. These features must be integrated into the design from the ground up—if they aren’t considered during the initial design phase, the equipment will likely fail to meet GMP standards.
This has been a common issue with equipment originally developed for the North American recreational cannabis market, where GMP compliance is often not required. While such equipment may perform well enough in the recreational space, it frequently falls short in medical or pharmaceutical cannabis production, where stringent GMP requirements are mandatory. Companies that invest in subpar technology can face significant delays in obtaining licenses—sometimes months or even years—due to issues like cross-contamination or inconsistent production.
The cannabis market has seen many cases where companies’ licensing processes were derailed by poor equipment choices. While many manufacturers claim their equipment is GMP-compliant, it often turns out to meet only food-grade standards, which are insufficient for pharmaceutical-grade production. In some cases, the equipment doesn’t even meet those basic standards.
It is critical for customers to work with suppliers who truly understand EU GMP requirements and can provide clear proof that their equipment complies with these rigorous standards. Choosing the wrong supplier or technology can have serious financial and operational consequences.
How do you see innovations in decontamination technology advancing in the next few years to address evolving consumer and regulatory demands?
Decontamination is a critical and increasingly discussed topic in the cannabis industry, particularly for medical products. It is important for both growers and consumers, especially with recent regulatory changes, such as those introduced by the German government, which mandate transparency about decontamination methods used. This has heightened interest in alternatives to traditional irradiation.
Decontamination primarily addresses bioburden reduction, ensuring that microbial contaminants like bacteria and molds are below safe thresholds defined by European pharmacopeia standards. Among the various techniques, irradiation—using gamma radiation, electron beam (e-beam), or X-ray—has been the most common.
Facilities across Europe, often ISO 9001 and GMP-compliant, handle these processes. However, countries like Germany now require labeling of products that have undergone irradiation, which has led to consumer skepticism and resistance.
As a result, companies are exploring alternative methods such as oxidative atmospheres or heat-based treatments. These methods aim to maintain the integrity of the product by preserving cannabinoid content, terpene profiles, color, and morphology as closely as possible to the original state. Each technique has its own advantages and drawbacks, and it’s challenging to find a method that leaves the product unchanged post-treatment.
In 2024, there has been a marked shift, with companies beginning to invest heavily in on-site decontamination technologies. The traditional model of outsourcing to large irradiation facilities is losing appeal, as consumers either reject irradiated products or demand significant price reductions. This trend underscores the growing demand for methods that align with both regulatory requirements and consumer expectations.
What role does automation play in improving efficiency and reducing operational costs for cannabis producers, and how does Paralab Green support its clients in adopting these technologies?
Yes, we’re seeing significant advancements in automation across the cannabis industry, particularly in areas where we are most active, such as post-harvest processes, extraction, and purification. These advancements are already making a substantial impact, with more progress expected in the near future.
Automation is critical as it enables faster workflows and reduces reliance on human resources, ultimately lowering operational costs. For instance, in automated trimming lines, you can process significantly more material with the same team. While hand-tuning is often required for craft products, high-end automated systems minimise this need. The difference between having to manually adjust 50% of the flowers versus only 10% is substantial in terms of time and cost savings. High-quality automation not only boosts efficiency but also ensures a superior standard of operation.
We distribute Mobius systems, which are industry leaders in automated trimming. These systems not only reduce costs but also minimise human error, a crucial factor for achieving consistency in GMP-compliant environments. Manual systems struggle to provide the same level of consistency, especially when there’s a mix of mechanical and manual processes. Automation ensures uniform production in both throughput and quality.
The next wave of automation involves systems equipped with vision technology and artificial intelligence (AI). These systems will be capable of analysing products in real-time and adjusting control settings automatically to maintain predefined quality standards. They’ll even be able to reject products that don’t meet quality criteria, reducing reliance on human judgement for final decisions, such as determining whether a flower meets ‘premium’ standards. This level of innovation is expected to become mainstream within the next few months to a few years.
Automation is also transforming extraction processes. It provides consistency in production and supports efficient cleaning protocols, which are essential to avoid cross-contamination. Moreover, automation simplifies traceability by ensuring that processes are robust and data is readily available in real-time, with minimal manual input. Once a process is established, this reduces workload while improving reliability and compliance.
Fully automated ethanol extraction systems are already available on the market, and CO2 extraction—also known as Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SFE)—has advanced to include fully automated solutions. These systems allow you to load milled flower at the start, and the process runs seamlessly, producing highly purified extracts that move through all downstream processes within an enclosed system.
In the past, refinement and purification steps often created bottlenecks, required significant operator involvement, exposed materials to potential contaminants, and resulted in lower yields with reduced quality. These advancements eliminate those inefficiencies, ensuring a faster, cleaner, and more consistent process.
Paralab Green, with over 32 years of experience in laboratory equipment, is a trusted leader in providing EU-GMP-compliant solutions for the medical cannabis sector. Since entering the industry in 2018, Paralab Green has developed a complete range of technologies for post-harvest processes, including extraction and purification, positioning itself as one of the few European companies offering end-to-end solutions. Headquartered in Portugal, with offices in both Portugal and Spain, Paralab Green extends its expertise to Europe, Latin America, Israel, and Africa. You can explore Paralab Green’s offerings here.Â
