Khiron Life Sciences
INTERNATIONAL medical cannabis company Khiron has seen its share price skyrocket over 60% following a crucial resolution that was passed by the Colombian Ministry of Health.
Resolution 2808 was signed on December 30, 2022, meaning that from January 1, 2023, every insurance provider in Colombia is mandated to cover the costs of medical cannabis prescriptions for patients.
This is great news for Khiron’s wholly owned Colombian medical cannabis clinic network Zerenia, which reportedly has a patient base of more than 25,000, 90% of whose prescriptions will now be covered by insurance.
The resolution is also understood to have expanded the number of medical conditions for which medical cannabis can be prescribed and covered by insurance, to include chronic and neuropathic pain, oncology pain, sleep disorders, epilepsy and fibromyalgia, understood to be the ‘primary conditions treated with Khiron products’.
Alongside this, Khiron has also signed a contract with Colombia’s largest public insurance company Capital Salud EPS, which is owned by the city of Bogota and insures more than 1.2m people.
Under the new contract, Khiron will provide ‘integrative health services and pharmacotherapeutic treatment with medical cannabis’ to its patient population, 280,000 of which suffer from conditions expected to be treatable via Khiron’s products.
Alvaro Torres, CEO of Khiron said: “Today is a great day for patients in Colombia and Khiron. We welcome the decision from the new Colombian government to categorically mandate insurance coverage for our medical cannabis products.
“With this decision, Khiron will immediately tackle the backlog of covered medical cannabis products to our patients. In parallel, we have also secured a first-of-its-kind contractual relationship with one of Colombia´s largest government-owned insurance companies for medical cannabis specific healthcare services and dispensation. These two achievements will allow us to revert to predictable recurring revenues, shorter collection periods and improved cashflow.”
Apollon Formularies
Apollon Formularies saw its share price drop by double digits on Thursday (January 12) morning, seeing trade volumes on the Aquis exchange hit some of the highest levels in months.
It came as the UK-based medical cannabis company announced that it had signed a new ‘binding letter of intent’ with Canadian operator Global Hemp Group (GHG), granting it a ‘perpetual licence’ for the intellectual property of four of Apollon’s key patents in the US, Canada and Mexico.
Crucially, the deal also gives GHG 60 days to conduct due diligence after which time it ‘may exercise the option to acquire the entirety of Apollon’s global assets’.
For the initial acquisition of IP, GHG will pay Apollon a total of C$250k. The first $100k tranche of this transition was paid on January 10, with the next $150k due in the next 20 trading days.
Furthermore, Apollon will acquire 10m of GMG’s shares, traded on the Canadian Securities Exchange, for a price of $0.015 per share, its current share price, representing a total consideration of $491k.
Should both parties be satisfied with the due diligence after 60 days, GHG will have the ‘exclusive’ option to acquire all Apollon assets ‘other than cash, cash equivalents, and receivables’, for a payment of 771m GHG shares priced at $0.015 per share.
This would value Apollon at $11.6m, or £7.1m, around £2m more than its current market capitalisation.
GHG’s market cap currently stands at around $2 (£1.2m), and the company reported a net loss of $165k in the three months to June 30, 2022, down considerably from a loss of $1.7m in the same period a year earlier, alongside total assets of $4.6m.
Meanwhile, in the six-month period to June 30, 2022, Apollon also reported revenues of £165k and alongside a total loss of £212k, with total assets of £3.6m.
Seach Medical Group
Israeli medical cannabis operator Seach Medical also signed a major deal this week, resulting in a 20% spike in its stock price.
According to The Israeli Cannabis Magazine, Seach has acquired a cannabis factory and trading house from Way of Life Cannabis for ₪2.3m, at what the company described as a ‘very attractive price’.
The acquisition will reportedly give Seach full control over its entire supply chain for the first time in its history, enabling it to package and distribute products rather than rely on third parties to do so.
According to Seach, the facility is currently able to package around 800kg per month, but this could soon be increased to over 1.5 tonnes, enabling the company to provide packaging services to third parties.
It said in a recent stock market filing: “With the completion of the transaction, the company will, for the first time, directly own the growing, production, packaging, storage, and distribution divisions, and thus the company will strengthen its hold at all stages of the value chain independently.”
Seach’s CEO, Yogev Sharid, explained that the need for a factory has increased as Seach’s sales have continued to rise, with revenues for 2022 expected to top ₪130m, likely seeing it remain one of the only cannabis companies listed on the Israeli Stock Exchange that is continuing to turn a profit.
