Sativex revenues for 2011: £29.6 million

[RainDog]

Last edited Thu Jan 5, 2012, 05:28 AM - Edit history (1)

but full year profits dropped. However, as GW Pharma enters into phase III trials for Sativex as a cancer pain treatment... well, let me just say that any of you with money to invest - if you make a killing in this market and didn't know about it before, please remember the poor...

Sativex is whole plant cannabis that contains about a 50/50 mix of Sativa and Ruderalis cannabis used for the treatment of MS. The Ruderalis offsets the euphoric effects of the Sativa to create a 1 to 1 THC to CBD ratio. In addition to THC and CBD, this whole-plant cannabis medicine (i.e. marijuana suspended in liquid spray form) contains terpenoids and flavonoids that are also properties of cannabis.

Sativex is sprayed under the tongue. When administered in this way, it takes effect faster than a pill. (Like the less-effective but legal synthetic THC marketed as Marinol for nausea.)

Cannabis medicine has an even faster effect if it is vaporized rather than suspended in liquid and sprayed under the tongue. However, this delivery system would be considered simply "marijuana" and, thus, has little to no likelihood of being made legal in the U.S. when it is so profitable for certain groups to maintain its illegality.

The U.S. has blocked legalization of Sativex in the U.S. because (other than the fact that it's marijuana) the medicine is delivered as a spray. The U.S. wants GW Pharma to make the delivery system of the spray limit the amount of Sativex that a patient may access.... yeah... stunning, isn't it? Take as many pain pills as you like, but limit the dosage of a medicine that is so safe there is no known dosage that can kill humans or animals.

No other country in the world demands this ridiculous "blocking" technology (which would drive up the cost of the same here if it were legalized.) Of course, the reality is that the DEA would have to reschedule cannabis in order to allow the sale of Sativex in the U.S. because this medicine is, again, marijuana. Currently, the U.S. federal govt. bureaucracies responsible for scheduling state that cannabis has no medical value. In spite of its legal use as a medicine elsewhere based upon a full complement of clinical trials for its use as a medicine for MS, the US bureaucracies are SO CORRUPT and SO SELF-SERVING they refuse to acknowledge what the rest of the world now does - that cannabis is a medicine.

http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/35947/gw-pharmaceuticals-says-sativex-sales-top-expectations-but-full-year-profit-drops-35947.html

Sativex sales jumped 59 percent to £4.4 million, while milestone income amounted to £5.3 million compared to £11.2 million a year earlier. The group’s cash position has increased from £25.2 million at the end of 2010 to £28.3 million.

Sativex sales were lifted by its launch in the UK, Germany, Spain and Denmark during the past year with GW expecting further approvals and launches in Europe in the current financial year.

The drug is expected to be launched in the Czech Republic, Italy, Sweden, and Austria in the coming months.

The group has also signed license agreements to commercialise Sativex in Australasia, Asia (excluding Japan and China), the Middle East and Africa.

GW Pharmaceuticals is also in phase III studies of cancer pain treatment that will begin in early 2012. The market for use of Sativex for cancer pain treatment is HUGE compared to the profitability of the creation and distribution of Sativex for MS.

"The goal of treating cancer pain is also important for GW because, if successful, it will mark the entry-point for Sativex into the all-important U.S. market"

Pretax profit in the prior year (2010) to Sept. 30 increased to 4.6 million pounds ($7.37 million) from 1.2 million pounds a year ago, as sales of Sativex jumped by 64 percent to 2.8 million pounds from 1.7 million pounds.

GW is working on the final-stage Phase III clinical trials of Sativex for cancer pain with Otsuka Pharmaceutical, its licensing partner in the United States.

http://www.cannabisni.com/uk-cannabis-news/1795-cannabis-drug-sativex-boosts-profits-at-gw-pharma

To highlight how FUCKING HYSTERICAL the issue of marijuana remains, GW Pharma grows cannabis in SECRET WAREHOUSES in rural areas of GB.

Here's a BBC Horizon excerpt on GW's grow warehouses.

The process by which GW Pharma creates the cannabis for Sativex is EXACTLY THE SAME as the way in which growers in, oh, CA or Oregon produce cannabis medicine - except on a much larger scale.

GW then does something that the guy who touts his cannabis oil in Canada does - GW suspends the cannabis - using the entire plant, stems and all, rather than just the buds, btw, in liquid, reduces this, then bottles in a spray. The reason they can patent Sativex, which is, afterall SIMPLY CANNABIS suspended in liquid, is the suspension and then the form of delivery in a spray bottle.

I swear I have NEVER seen any issue with so much outright corruption, lying and downright bullshit in the U.S. as the issue of cannabis scheduling and its subsequent criminalization. There are probably many others - I don't look at defense contracting often, but they, too get a slice of the federal WoD pie - the biggest slice, in fact.

If your state does not have legal medical marijiuana, you should ask your representatives to justify the taxpayer costs for this corruption at the highest levels of power in the U.S. knowing that it's very likely cannabis will be legal - at least for GW Pharma, by 2013.

[RainDog]

1. oh yeah

the way in which GW Pharma wants to make it possible to market Sativex or the cancer pain med they now have in the last phases of clinical trial is to grow the cannabis in Japan.

This is part of their partnership with Otsuka Pharmaceutical, in Japan.

iow, GW hopes to suck the dick of the DEA and get a favorable ruling by outsourcing the production of cannabis to Japan when the U.S., Canada and The Netherlands have been the leaders in cannabis horticulture for the last twenty years.

If you're not outraged - you're complicit in this bullshit.

[tridim]

2. Why is it bad for cancer patients to feel euphoria?

For that matter, why is bad for anyone to feel euphoria? Especially relatively safe and mild euphoria.

I guess stress relief is bad.

[RainDog]

3. Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. H.L. Mencken

honestly, I am becoming more and more convinced that marijuana causes psychosis... in the U.S. govt.

[RainDog]

4. Andrea Barthwell: Deputy Drug Czar turned lobbyist for Bayer/GW Pharma/Sativex

Last edited Tue Jan 21, 2014, 04:22 PM - Edit history (1)

h/t to fredamae for this excellent information.

Here's what Barthwell had to say when she was being paid to promote prohibition:

...You won’t find any commercial development of plant-based marijuana medicines being pursued in the United States. Andrea Barthwell, a deputy director in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and President Bush’s point person on medical marijuana, says cannabis medicines aren’t compatible with modern science. They do not constitute “a serious line of research,” she says.

“The people who are advancing marijuana as a medicine are perpetuating a cruel hoax that exploits our compassion for the sick,” Barthwell says. “They are using patients’ pain and suffering in an attempt to change America’s drug control policy. Marijuana is a crude plant product that most definitely is not a medicine.”

http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/andrea-barthwell-snake-oil-salesman/

More from Barthwell:

"Having this product available will certainly slow down the dash to make the crude plant material available to patients across the country," said Barthwell, an addiction medicine specialist.

Some medical marijuana activists suggested that Sativex could help spur efforts to legalize medicinal use of leafy marijuana.

"In practical terms," said Mirken, of the Marijuana Policy Project, "Sativex is to marijuana as a cup of coffee is to coffee beans."

Barthwell drew a different comparison.

"Comparing crude marijuana to Sativex is like comparing a raging forest fire to the fire in your home's furnace," she said. "While both provide heat, one is out of control."

(From Kirk Tousaw, Campaign Manager, BC Marijuana Party via the BCMP Website cache)

This is, again, pure propaganda to sell a product and make inexpensive medicine unavailable to Americans - and Canadians, for that matter.

Barthwell showed up at a conference sponsored by Americans for Safe Access and claimed that Sativex is not cannabis...and she's a doctor? An advocate from ASA noted her appearance.

After I pointed out to the few reporters that she was not JUST a private citizen, but the ex-Deputy Drug Czar, a representative of GW, and the failed Republican nominee for IL Senate, she told the press that rescheduling marijuana would not make it available to patients. I concurred. Then she asked me how I could say that Sativex was marijuana. I asked her if it was not marijuana, what was it? She rattled off her sound byte "If your grandmother was in pain would you give her opium?"

I am writing this list because I have major concern for the future of Sativex. Barthwell looked ridiculous. All the reporters kept asking her "They are here in support of Sativex, what is your problem?" And she just kept giving her sound bytes about how Sativex was not marijuana. Luckily Matt Atwood, Executive Director of IDEALReform, also a chemist was present and challenged her on the "compound level" to which her only response was "What are you a scientists?"

Directly after the press conference, I received a "Cease and Desist" order from the Bayer attorneys over a domain name ASA purchased but had yet put up the content www.SativexInfo.org , www.SativexInfo.com, and www.SativexInfo.net which is a pro-Sativex website they also found out about from Don Wirtshafter's e-mail. We have kindly told them we will not be giving over the domains and we will end up in court in the next 20 days or so.

So, we see that, yes, indeed, drug warriors like this woman are working with Bayer and GW to pull some slick shit and make Sativex legal while keeping the cannabis plant illegal by pretending that a medicine made from WHOLE-PLANT CANNABIS, not a synthetic, is not WHOLE-PLANT CANNABIS.

I suppose that's why the Drug Czar amended his pronouncement that there is no medical value to cannabis to "smoked" cannabis. He may soon have to start saying... smoked, buttered, baked, vaped, tinctured or any other way... if not done by the big pharma the government favors.

You know, long ago, some people in Boston had a tea party because their government favored a corporation, The East India Company, over those who lived in this nation who produced their own tea. King George ruled that the colonists must purchase the product that favored him, economically, rather than those who lived and worked here and often scraped by to eke out a living. The current teabaggers misrepresent this moment - this moment was a riot against corporate favoritism, not taxation. Now the tea is of a different blend.

Here's Barthwell on Morning Talking Heads TV

The host of the show failed to mention that Barthwell had worked as a lobbyist for a company that would benefit from keeping cannabis illegal.

In addition, the host didn't understand the difference between a synthetic and natural plant-based entity.

In addition, the crawl says 25 million have treated for marijuana abuse but failed to indicate that the majority of those entering rehab for cannabis had not used it for more than a month prior to rehab (which indicates they were not addicted), or that the majority of people in the U.S. who go to rehab for marijuana in the U.S. do so to avoid a criminal record for simple possession. iow, that stat is part of prohibition propaganda.

From Saturday, April 16, 2005 The Pharmaceuticalization of Marijuana: G.W. Does the "Right" Thing - Fred Gardner at CounterPunch

G.W. has also hired John Pastuovic, who headed the Bush-Cheney campaign in Illinois in 2000, to handle public relations in the U.S. The implication of the hires is that G.W. founders Geoffrey Guy and Brian Whittle will use any means necessary to push their products as alternatives to smoked marijuana.

Olsen v. DEA, according to the MPP, may provide a route for Bayer/GW to obtain special treatment for Sativex to allow it to be made legal while whole-plant cannabis that is not supplied by a pharmceutical company remains illegal.

The corruption, the pure financial consideration over the welfare and civil rights of Americans is, once again, is illustrated by a government that implements policy based upon lies. Who, with the power to do so, has the courage to stop this assault on Americans? Are we governed by cowards and liars who enrich themselves at the expense of the American people? I wonder, more and more.

The cycle of deceit continues, from Anslinger's Marihuana Tax Act legislation of 1937 to favor forestry paper pulp over hemp, to Barthwell's attempt to create a two-tier class of Americans based, again, upon lies.