Ananda Pharma, now the leading force in pharmaceutical cannabis research in the UK, has announced that the former Chief Operating Officer of GW Pharmaceuticals and Jazz Pharmaceuticals will join its team.
Chris Tovey, who played a critical role in getting the world’s most widely used cannabinoid-based medicines approved and commercialised in multiple countries, is set to join Ananda initially as an advisor, with the door open to him potentially joining as a director.
For the relatively small company, which has a market cap of around £18.3m compared to Jazz Pharma’s $6.5bn, this represents a pivotal moment for Ananda.
“I sincerely believe there is unfinished business in the cannabinoid medicines space, and Ananda is the only company I’ve seen approaching it the right way. I believe they have the potential to replicate what we achieved at GW, targeting different indications. The opportunity is enormous,” Tovey said in a press statement.
A driving force for medical cannabis access
During his extensive career in pharmaceuticals, it’s no understatement to say that Tovey has helped expand access to cannabis-based medicines to thousands of patients in dozens of countries, and has played a key role in legitimising them as a treatment in mainstream healthcare.
GW Pharmaceuticals created the COO position specifically for Tovey in 2012, who had previously spent 18 years at GlaxoSmithKline, at a time when GW was gearing up to rapidly expand its operations.
At the time, Epidyolex was an investigational drug, and GW had a market cap of around £30m.
Alongside taking on oversight for day-to-day operations, manufacturing, supply chain, and market access efforts, he played a key roles in shaping GW’s strategy for its cannabinoid portfolio.
While GW had achieved the world’s first fully approved cannabis-derived medicine with Sativex a few years prior to his appointment, during his tenure the drug secured approvals in more than 25 countries for MS-related spasticity.
However, it was Epidyolex which became a key focus, and financial success, for GW during his incumbency.
He helped drive the drug development programme from clinical trials to regulatory submission, leading to the landmark US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) approval in 2018, marking the first plant-derived cannabinoid medicine in history to be given the green light by the regulator.
A year later, he was heavily involved in interactions with the European Medicines Agency in seeing Epidyolex approved in 2019 for Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome (LGS) and Dravet Syndrome. It was later approved for Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC) in 2021 in Europe and the UK.
In the UK, Tovey also liaised with the regulators during and after Brexit and was a key figure in working with the Home Office and Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) to reschedule Epidyolex to a lower control class, ultimately seeing it downgraded from a Schedule 2 substance to a Schedule 5 in 2020, easing prescribing restrictions.
READ MORE: Has GW Pharmaceuticals – Now Jazz Pharmaceuticals – Knee-Capped The CBD Industry?
A billion-dollar drug
As COO, Tovey had direct oversight of GW’s commercial operations outside of the US, with his hand guiding the commercial rollout of Epidyolex in key markets.
Crucially, this involved expanding GW’s operations to ensure enough pharmaceutical-grade CBD was on hand to meet demand. According to a UK government research report, in 2021 59 hectares of cannabis for medical and scientific purposes were harvested in the UK, producing 329 tonnes, with 213 tonnes the same year, more than half of the reported global total.
The rapid rise of UK cannabis production and exportation, which skyrocketed from 95 tonnes in 2016, is understood to be largely due to GW’s operations. While it has never publicly broken down output per site, it is understood to lease three growing facilities across the country, with a combined cultivation footprint of 21.m sq ft
This, coupled with the establishment of medical liaison teams to explain the drug’s clinical trial results and safety profile, enabled the company to move quickly into new territories once approval was received.
By 2020, two years after it was approved, Epidyolex had treated some 15,000 patients in the US, and achieved over $500m in annual sales.
In 2024, Epidyolex’s net product sales topped $972m, a 15% increase on the previous year. Outside of the US, Epidyolex is now approved in more than 35 countries, according to the company.
This commercial success was soon recognised by analysts, which called said it had ‘near-term blockbuster potential’ in 2020, making GW a key target for larger pharmaceutical companies.
Ultimately, this resulted in the acquisition of GW by Jazz Pharmaceuticals in 2021 in a deal worth $7.2bn, the largest deal in history in the cannabis medicines space at the time.
Tovey joined Jazz as Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director of Europe & International, before departing the company in October 2022.
His role at Ananda
Like GW when Tovey joined, Ananda is currently involved in several clinical trials for its proprietary CBD-based formulas both in the UK and abroad.
In October 2024, Ananda announced that its patent-pending cannabinoid medicines, MRX2 (CBD) and MRX2T (CBD + THC), will be used in two Phase III clinical trials, co-funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and the NHS.
The trials, set to be conducted by University College London (UCL) and Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) aim to evaluate the safety and efficacy of these medicines for refractory epilepsy in children and adults.
These are not only the largest trials of their kind globally but also the first major UK trials into this condition since GW Pharmaceuticals widely cited research.
This is in addition to the two RCT’s being conducted by the University of Edinburgh, which have already secured £1.55m in funding to explore its effectiveness in treating endometriosis-associated pain and CBD on chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, alongside further research trials in Australia.
According to Ananda, Tovey will ‘work closely with the board and senior management’ to help guide its medicine through clinical trials and into the market, while advising on its corporate, operational, commercial, and drug development strategies.
For his involvement, Tovey has been granted 50m share options with a 10-year term at 0.44p. Should Tovey be officially appointed to the company’s Board as a director, he could be granted another 75m options.
Charles Morgan, Ananda’s Chairman and largest shareholder, stated: “We are honoured to have Chris join Ananda. His unique experience gaining FDA and EMA approvals for a CBD medicine will help us achieve our ambition of delivering regulatory-approved CBD products faster and more cost-effectively. His involvement is a major vote of confidence in our approach.”
Though only time will tell whether GW’s runaway success can be replicated with Ananda, Tovey’s oversight will give it a fighting chance few others are able to offer.
