European Cannabis Market Trends
Cross-border trade in medical hemp already in 2019 is clearly entering a new phase in its development. Those. price barriers in the market for the use of hemp for medical purposes are smoothed out. In the medium term, German patients will not have to rely on insurance companies in the event of the purchase of hemp medicines, and their purchase will not be extremely painful for a single patient. We can say that "the race to normalize prices for hemp raw materials used for medical purposes in Europe" has begun.
The German importer Farmako, based in Frankfurt, concluded the first non-Canadian / non-Dutch deal to import a significant amount of cannabis leaves and inflorescences into the country with a Polish firm that traces "Israeli-Canadian roots".
Hemp map of Europe is becoming more and more interesting. If earlier the German government imported cannabis flowers exclusively from Canada and the Netherlands, then this year raw materials for medical use of hemp from Poland will appear in the country. In particular, representatives of the Frankfurt company announced the conclusion of a deal to import 50 tons of hemp raw material, which is planned to be used for medical purposes over the next 4 years from Poland.
The peculiarity of this transaction is that its amount for the import of hemp raw materials into Germany is approximately five times the amount of financial resources required to complete an internal tender for the cultivation of medical hemp in Germany.
Another feature of this transaction is that the supplier company PharmaCann Polska is a unique conglomeration of individuals with clearly Canadian and Israeli experience in the medical cannabis market. This means that company representatives have access to the two largest medical cannabis production markets in the world and are likely planning to enter other EU markets and neighboring countries (including Ukraine) with their products in the near future.
Consequences for the German market
Farmako clearly intends to adhere to the pricing policies that Canopy and Tilray profess in the German market. In turn, for Wayland (currently the largest German certified manufacturer of medical cannabis and a fully licensed company ready to work), the policies of the above importers pose a significant threat - will medical cannabis grown in Germany be cheaper in the long run cheaper than the one that is currently imported from countries with low-paid labor markets.
Other problems of the medical cannabis market in Germany
There are several more problems that cannot be solved by filling the German market with high-quality hemp raw materials. The first problem is the ability of patients to find doctors who can not only write a prescription for the use of hemp for medical purposes, but also make sure that enough time is spent filling out documents and negotiating with patient insurers, which will subsequently have to compensate for the cost of acquired pharmacological Hemp preparations. Most patients (90% of the country) use the so-called “compulsory” health insurance and cannot afford to pay the costs of hemp medicine in pharmacies. Ready-made cannabis medicines in Germany are extremely expensive, for example, Canadian firms sell the hemp raw materials they produce in Germany at 2 times more expensive than their purchase prices in Canada.
The second problem is that at present it is not clear which hemp product / medicine should be prescribed in any given case and in what quantities.
Commentary of the Ukrainian Technical Hemp Association
Farmako is not the only German company importing hemp raw materials from abroad. Canadian Tilray plans to use Portuguese cannabis crop for sale in German pharmacies, other Canadian and Dutch companies declare that they plan to significantly increase sales of medical cannabis grown by them, specifically for sales in the highly liquid German market from countries in which extremely low-paying labor market.
Similar processes are taking place not only in Germany. For example, in the UK, one of the local importers announced the importation into the country of the first large consignment of medical cannabis grown in the Netherlands, which was immediately distributed for sale to more than 1,000 pharmacies throughout the United Kingdom.
The tendency according to which any restrictions on the import of hemp raw materials subsequently used for medical purposes to Germany from Canada and the Netherlands has become completely obvious. We can already say that the cross-border trade in medical hemp already in 2019 is clearly entering a new phase of its development. Those. price barriers in the market for the use of hemp for medical purposes are smoothed out. In the medium term, German patients will not have to rely on insurance companies in the event of the purchase of hemp medicines, and their purchase will not be extremely painful for a single patient. We can say that "the race to normalize prices for hemp raw materials used for medical purposes in Europe" has begun.
Information - As of December 2018, there were a little over 46,000 patients in Germany. And this is a growth trend, which, although it has been increasing over the past three quarters, is however extremely slow.