Neptune Wellness Solutions Inc. has received its license to process cannabis from Health Canada. 
 
“In 2017, we embarked upon a new strategic vision to position the company in growth markets such as the legal cannabis market and to become a global leader in cannabis extraction, purification and formulation of value-added differentiated products. Since then, we have executed a carefully-planned roadmap to ready our significant manufacturing capacity for production, secure multi-year commercial contracts with great companies like Canopy Growth, and expand our strategic relationships, recently beginning a collaboration agreement with Lonza, a global market leader for the production of unique value-added capsules. We realized all this while moving along the various steps of the licensing process,” commented Jim Hamilton, president & CEO of Neptune. 
 
“Today, with our Health Canada processing license in hand, we officially enter the sizable cannabis market and are fully ready to commence commercializing our extraction capabilities,” Mr. Hamilton continued. “This tremendous achievement reflects the professionalism and experience of our team, led by Michel Timperio, who is fully committed and excited to begin actual delivery on the promise of our vision. Furthermore, we are very proud to be one of the few Quebec-based companies that have received a license from Health Canada, and look forward to contributing to this emerging industry in our home province.” 
 
The Health Canada license enables Neptune to handle dried cannabis, to manufacture and purify cannabis extracts and cannabis oil, and to sell its services to other license holders. With production activities anticipated to commence shortly at Neptune’s 50,000 square foot good manufacturing practice (GMP)-certified facility in Sherbrooke, Quebec, the company expects be able to generate revenues from existing supply agreements and conclude additional agreements shortly. 
 
Neptune remains on track to complete its Phase II capacity investment by March 2019, which will increase its facility’s input capacity to 200,000 kg of dried cannabis from a current capacity of 30,000 kg. This will position Neptune among Canada’s largest cannabis processors, with additional significant capacity expansion potential in the Sherbrooke facility of up to 6,000 metric tons to meet global demand for medical cannabis products. The collaboration with Lonza for the production of unique value-added capsules, combined with significant manufacturing capabilities, will allow Neptune to expand its strategy from a service provider to other license holders to a provider of differentiated cannabis products to customers in Canada. The company is now in the process of applying for additional authorization for sale of cannabis products from Health Canada to complement the processing license, allowing for further distribution of finished form cannabis products directly to consumers and patients. 
 
“This is a thrilling moment for Neptune as our ambition to redeploy our core competencies to exciting consumer product categories by creating and delivering differentiated formulations for the burgeoning cannabis market becomes a reality. Neptune’s long-standing scientific expertise in the formulation of natural health products supports our ability to deliver exceptional quality formulations for our business customers. The processing license granted by the agency puts us on a new growth trajectory, positioning Neptune as a provider of extracted cannabis products in this large, growing global market segment,” concluded Mr. Hamilton.