Another partner has been added to Wellnex Life’s medical cannabis joint venture – Chemist Warehouse.
Back in July last year, Australian health and wellness product distributor Wellnex Life Limited (ASX: WNX) announced it had entered into a joint venture with local medical cannabis firm OneLife Botanicals for the purpose of bringing registered medicinal cannabis and hemp-based products to Australian and international markets.
Australia’s leading online pharmacy retailer has now joined the party – Chemist Warehouse.
Under the terms of the arrangement, Chemist Warehouse will receive a 10% interest in the existing Wellnex/ OneLife JV. According to Wellnex, five medicinal cannabis products will be initially launched under a new JV brand that will be made
available via Chemist Warehouse as well as additional pharmacy wholesalers and pharmacies, with a goal of delivering the first of these products by the end of FY23.
The nature of the products wasn’t mentioned, but have been developed with consideration to best-selling products currently in the market. These will be products accessible under the Special Access Scheme Category B (SAS-B), which is the most commonly used channel for accessing medical cannabis in Australia.
Also announced by Wellnex was an exclusive agreement with OnTracka, which will develop a new telehealth application connecting patients with authorised prescribers and relevant cannabis products.
“We are excited to be entering a rapidly transforming industry which is seeing surging consumer demand with growing recognition of the legitimacy of cannabis-based medicine by patients and prescribers,” said Wellnex Life CEO George Karafotias.
Wellnex appears to be gearing up to become a major player on Australia’s medical cannabis scene through its joint venture. In October last year, OneLife Botanicals announced the completed acquisition of MediPharm Labs Australia. At the time, Wellnex commented this would enable it to enter the SAS market and to be one of the first companies to obtain approval for an over-the-counter medicinal cannabis product under Schedule 3 (S3) classification.
But scoring S3 classification remains to be seen as there is a lot of red tape involved – and a bunch of other companies are vying to be the first, or among them.
