- France will experiment with therapeutic cannabis in September.
- French law prevents the production of this type of medicine.
- The products prescribed during this test period will all be imported.
When is cannabis made in France? The deputies gave their agreement, last October, to launch an experiment of therapeutic cannabis on the territory. This test must begin as early as next September, for a period of two years and on a panel of 3,000 patients. However, prescribing physicians will have to settle for products manufactured abroad. Indeed, the legislation does not yet allow French industrialists to grow cannabis containing more than 0.2% THC.
"Even if French regulations change tomorrow, we are in any case late," laments Henri Hennion, the founder of biotech Elican, based in Lille. The start-up intends to position itself on the promising market for the manufacture and distribution of drugs derived from cannabinoids. According to the entrepreneur, in France, it is not less than 10 million potential patients who could, once the experiment is validated, be prescribed medical cannabis. But we are not there yet.
The regulatory lock
“The experiment voted by the deputies will last two years. For our part, it takes no less than 18 months to develop a product. So, at best, French industrialists will only be able to position themselves at the end of the experiment, ”assures Henri Hennion. However, if the regulatory lock were to break, Elican would only have to press a button to start its process. “We have already partnered with seed producers and local farmers to grow the cannabis plants. We have also developed a process to improve the extraction and exploitation of cannabinoids from hemp and cannabis, ”explains the boss of the biotech.
In the meantime, it is therefore foreign producers, particularly Canadian ones, who will be crunching their teeth into the space cake. However, nothing is lost on the French side. “This experiment is not intended to scientifically prove the beneficial effects of medical cannabis. It is rather a question of laying the foundations for the use of this type of medication in the pharmacopoeia to replace others such as opioids, ”says Henri Hennion. Elican is therefore banking on the future and on its cannabis made in France.
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