Israeli pharmaceutical company Panaxia opened their first medical cannabis plant in New Mexico last March. The plant currently creates a line of 28 products including lozenges, sublingual tablets, an inhaler, oils, and more. At the moment, this plant is operating at full capacity but they are not meeting the market demand. The plant in New Mexico is making 10,000 units per month, each being sold from $10 to $15 a unit.
Currently Panaxia is in the process of expanding to four more United States factories. Arizona, Nevada, Maryland, and Massachusetts will be the next states to house Panaxia plants that will continue to follow the same successful formula used in New Mexico.
The name Panaxia represents a part of a group of companies headed by Dr. Dadi Segal. This includes a medical esthetics company and an over-the-counter drug company. Tree of Life, the over-the counter drug company, market and distribute 300 products in Israel. They also export these products. They are now ready to enter the cannabis market and change the current perception of the plant in the American pharmaceutical world.
Panaxia founder and chairman Dr. Dadi Segal says, “We’re in effect exporting to the US cannabis market, even though it is still illegal to import the cannabis itself to the US. We produce all the materials needed to manufacture the drug here; only the cannabis itself in mixed in the plant in the US.”
While the company expands in the states, Panaxis will launch a cannabis products factory in Israel in the next few months. This portion of their expansion is in response to part of the local cannabis market reform. Under the reform, growers will now sell product directly to Panaxis’ manufacturing plant to turn into pharmaceutical grade therapeutic supplements.
Maintaining the quality level of a bottle of aspirin from the drugstore is crucial. Segal explained that it is impossible to obtain US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) confirmation that a cannabis manufacturing plant is in compliance with the GMP production conditions. In response to this oversight, Panaxia has asked the FDA to step in and conduct independent supervision even though it isn’t required. They have invited the FDA in in hopes of promoting a perception that these products are pharmaceutical.
Segal says, “One of the things that surprised us in our US business was the great desire on the part of doctors, pharmacists, and university researchers in the local market to connect with us and our activity with cannabis. They wanted to study our information, and asked us to conduct training programs for them on how to use cannabis products, such as those existing in Israel, that do not yet exist in the US.”
