A REPORT into the German medical cannabis market estimates the number of patients totalled over 60,000 in less than two years since first approved.
The ‘Germany Cannabis Report’ from Prohibition Partners also states that within a few years that number will have risen to one million patients.
And, it estimates the total German cannabis market will be worth €16.2bn billion by 2028, with the medicinal cannabis market estimated to be worth €7.7bn by the same time.
This comes as Canadian firm Aphria, one of the few from that country to be currently showing a profit, say that by next year Germany will be contributing almost half it revenues.
In a first quarter results announcement Aphria said with 2020 revenue projections estimated at $700m, its ‘German distribution business will represent slightly more than half of the total net revenue’.
Daragh Anglim, Managing Director Prohibition Partners, says in the introduction to the report that the rapid growth of the German market ‘is unprecedented in Europe’.
Adding: “Major change has followed across the continent but Germany remains one of the most open, promising and exciting markets in the region.”
The report, which was released in October, last year, highlights the supply problems facing the German market which is currently reliant on imports from Canada, Holland, Portugal and Australia.
In an effort to combat this production licences were granted earlier this year, and of the 13 lots, Aphria and Aurora secured five, and Demecan received the remaining three lots.
Each lot allows the holder to grow 200 kilograms per year for a four-year period. And the report adds: “The reality is that the German tendered facilities are not going to meet the domestic medical cannabis quantity demand.”
It says patients requesting medical cannabis are being supported by a robust public health insurance regime, which covers 90% of the population.
The monthly allowance 100 grammes is generous and the ‘insurance companies cover all cannabis treatments and do not specify which conditions are covered’.
Medical cannabis in Germany is very expensive, however, with an average price to patients of between €20 and €25 per gram for flower.
In the Netherlands, medical cannabis is sold to patients for approximately €7 per gram, says the report.
