Kanabo is looking to increase patient access to medical cannabis with its acquisition of the GP Service.
Medical cannabis has been legal in the UK since 2018. Since then, only around three prescriptions have been given through the NHS. A 2019 survey from YouGov and The Centre for Medicinal Cannabis revealed that 1.4 milion people in the UK self-medicate with cannabis for chronic pain, but there were only around 2500 private prescriptions in the UK in March 2021.
A number of problems with the prescribing of cannabis are causing a bottleneck, reducing access for patients in the UK. Kanabo is aiming to find creative solutions to this problem – and its recent acquisition of the Telehealth GP Service is aiming to improve access for patients.
Founder and CEO of Kanabo, Avihu Tamir, spoke to Cannabis Wealth about how the company plans to leverage the GP Service to transform the UK’s medical cannabis industry through telehealth.
Read more: Kanabo makes £14m acquisition of telehealth GP service
“I think that people don’t appreciate the value in the last mile – the relationship with patients,” said Tamir. “In the UK, it’s different to the rest of the world – they still see cannabis as an old industry where you’re growing, cultivating something processing and just selling. They’re missing the point that this is an industry where the majority of the value is going to be, by far, in the last mile – the retail side, the branding of the product, the relationship with the patients.
“Like any other industry, it’s going online as well. And that’s even without understanding that this pain of safe access and prices of medical cannabis.”
Despite being one of the only countries in the world where cannabis can be prescribed for almost any condition, the country is probably one of the most difficult for access and pricing. Tamir says the sleeping giant of the UK market needs innovation.
“Every other country the trying to innovate the wheel again,” says Tamir. “In Israel, they have put made a terrible new set of regulations. Germany has also created regulation for medical cannabis along with Australia, Canada and most states in the US.
“In the UK, the regulators did something great – they didn’t invent the wheel again. They took the set of rules for controlled substances and unlicensed medicines and said cannabis is falling into this category. Immediately that means that the regulation, existing licenses and protocols and everything is in place already today.
“The small group of patients we already have, first of all, average payments per month are by far the highest, around £200 pounds. And the retention rate is above 80 per cent per month, meaning the situation is that people are paying a lot but still coming back and taking medical cannabis so, the market is strong.”
However, more access is needed for patients and Kanabo wanted to understand why, with the high demand for cannabis medicine, there are not many more patients accessing it.
“Why do we have limited patients when there is no real challenge in getting prescriptions and prescribing it?” asked Tamir, who thinks a large part of the problem is that the NHS is sitting on the fence by allowing the prescription of medical cannabis but not enabling their own physicians to prescribe it.
Tamir commented: “It doesn’t make sense. The second issue is that they created this bureaucratic hurdle where, if you want to get a prescription, you need to transfer a patient’s medical records to the specialist.”
This process can take weeks or months in some cases. The GP Service already has access to NHS records – which will hugely reduce the timescale for patients to access the medicine they need.
“The last challenge is that you don’t have a lot of physicians that are willing to prescribe – it could because the NHS is not supporting them, and they’re feeling worried about medical insurance. Maybe it’s just not worth for them because of all the hassle of prescribing cannabis,” Tamir commented.
Kanabo’s acquisition of the Telehealth GP Service is aiming to take this hassle out of prescribing cannabis to patients – bringing down prices and increasing access for patients.
Tamir said: “I think that with the GP service, we can solve the big problems and really create a solution that will be affordable, will be quick and will be less painful. We will really leverage the capability to educate both physicians and patients and through a very convenient platform of video calls.”
Currently, the GP Service is only prescribing non-controlled substances, but Tamir says it is in the process of getting the ability to describe controlled substances, and Kanabo is working on a process to create a committee of GPs.
Tamir said: “GPs cannot prescribe, but they can recommend. Our idea is for patients to have their initial interview with a GP who can recommend a medicine, and will then have, for example, twice a week, a committee with a specialist and sign next to their signature. So, we are starting to really find creative ways to relieve the bottleneck.”
Tamir says the response from the GP Service has been positive – its GPs understand that they are sitting on a platform that is perfect for medical cannabis as it is one of the only ones that is both private and connected to the NHS records.
“These are the two things you need,” says Tamir. “You can’t be a public service provider because you can’t prescribe cannabis and if you’re not connected to the NHS records, then you have the bureaucratic challenge. They understand and the physicians are very supportive of medical cannabis.”
Director of Kanabo, Dr Dan Porter, MP, former Minister of Health will be very involved in the process.
Tamir said: “I think that the stigma of cannabis is no more challenging in the UK. The challenge is that physicians worry for their insurance by prescribing something that the NHS is not signing on. So, surprisingly, it is not the stigma on cannabis holding things back.”
The move is a new avenue for the medical cannabis industry, but it is also a new market entry for Kanabo – which will see it entering the multi-billion pound telehealth market.
“This strategy for the GP Service is both entering the medical cannabis market and have a growth there, but still generating quite a lot of growth internally from the current business,” said Tamir. “I think that now it’s almost a default and that healthcare is going online. I think that there’s no question that the majority of the consultancy with GPs will be online in a matter of years.
“There are two target markets. One is the corporate market – there is no real solution today for the corporate market. People are becoming more and more accepting of private insurance. But they’re missing this part that is maybe even less expensive than private insurance, which is giving the employees access to quick and fast meetings with the physician.
“If you need to wait two weeks to see your GP or a few months to see a specialist – that doesn’t make sense, even for the employer. So, that is the offering that the GP Service is now targeting. The second part is beyond just the UK as a territory.”
Read more: Kanabo and Materia – innovating the cannabis supply chain in Europe
Tamir says that his dream is for any patient in the UK to be able to access a medical cannabis prescription in 90 minutes – 30 minutes for an appointment and 30 minutes to get the prescription – but this will take time.
“I think at the beginning it will take a few days,” commented Tamir. “But, it will still be much faster and much more convenient than any other service out there. I see that cannabis can be accessible to everyone.”
However, the venture is not without its challenges. Tamir highlights a current hurdle lies in pharmacies not being able to hold cannabis – but Kanabo’s relationships with major pharmacies in the UK will a long way towards resolving this issue.
Tamir comments: “We’re the first cannabis company in the UK that has contracts with all of the multiples in the UK – Superdrug and Boots for example. They see the GP Service as a legitimate health provider that has been working with them for years now. It’s not something new.
“So, it is no longer a cannabis company that is trying to bring them an unknown product. It’s a service that uses and understands and they see the value. We are also the only cannabis company that has the support of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in the NHS and which is being audited yearly.”
Since the announcement of Kanabo’s acquisition of the GP Service, the health service’s customer support has been flooded with calls and emails – which Tamir says demonstrates that there is no lack of patients in the UK.
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