- Canada’s first nationally legal cannabis-infused edible products began hitting store shelves December 17, vastly broadening the market for products using the plant’s extracts
- Lexaria Bioscience has dedicated years of research to the development of its proprietary DehydraTECH technology, designed to enhance the effectiveness of orally consumed drug products such as cannabis as well as nicotine
- Testing of Lexaria’s 2.0 version of its DehydraTECH technology shows enormous improvement in the speed of payload delivery to the bloodstream, as well as the potential for delivering drugs across the body’s largely impenetrable blood-brain barrier to the central nervous system
Canada’s regulatory innovations in making cannabis products accessible nationwide for both therapeutic and recreational purposes have led to this year’s ‘Cannabis 2.0’ national rollout of laws for a new edible cannabis-infused market. Cannabis edibles, extracts and topicals became legal in October pending a 60-90-day regulatory approval process for product applications, and that timeline resulted in the first legal edibles becoming available December 16 (http://ibn.fm/qFZdX), just in time for Christmas, subject to retailers’ delivery schedules.
Oral drug product innovator Lexaria Bioscience Corp. (CSE: LXX) (OTCQX: LXRP) is well situated to take advantage of the market arising from Canada’s sweeping legal changes, as well as the burgeoning market for infused edibles in select states within the United States. Lexaria’s own ‘2.0’ version of its patented DehydraTECH™ oral drug delivery technology has shown an ability in lab animal testing to deliver 811 percent more cannabidiol (CBD) into the bloodstream than generic industry control formulations, nearly doubling the capacity of existing DehydraTECH technology, a news release states (http://ibn.fm/Utl7A).
The company’s 2.0 technology is specifically being developed for effectiveness in helping to deliver its drug payload across the blood-brain barrier, a natural biological system of blood vessels and endothelial cells that bar most drugs from accessing the brain’s central nervous system hierarchy. The ability to effectively deliver drugs to the brain is of keen interest to developers of drugs designed to beneficially target the central nervous system.
Lexaria’s research and development showed that DehydraTECH version 2.0 was able to deliver 1,937 percent more CBD into brain tissue than generic industry control formulations and 487 percent more than the original DehydraTECH technology, according to the company’s news release.
Deloitte market analysts estimate that the total cannabis market in Canada alone, where the market allows for federal scale, will produce up to $7.17 billion in sales this year, the vast majority from approved recreational-use products. While edibles currently make up a small portion of the overall cannabis market, Deloitte found that six out of 10 likely cannabis consumers will choose to use edible products, particularly when it comes to baked goods (http://ibn.fm/gVhe7).
Deloitte researchers predict the Canadian market for edibles and alternative cannabis products will be worth $2.7 billion a year, with extract-based products making up nearly 60 percent of the total (http://ibn.fm/iu82y).
Lexaria also recently announced pilot lab trials in humans that showed the recreational tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) cannabinoid demonstrated effectiveness in less than 10 minutes with version 2.0 – about twice as fast as traditional DehydraTECH and four to six times faster than generic industry formulations for oral consumption (http://ibn.fm/lWR1X).
While cannabis’ popularity has been an explosive new market force, the DehydraTECH technology isn’t dedicated to it exclusively. DehydraTECH has been in development as a solution to health problems associated with smoked or vaped drug delivery over the course of the past three years, including alternatives to tobacco’s nicotine cigarette inhalation. DehydraTECH’s developmental goal is to provide an oral drug consumption method that provides effectiveness as rapidly as inhaled substances, thereby eliminating any practical reason for smoking or vaping and their potential harm to users’ throats and lungs.
Lexaria has licensed its technology to multiple companies in the cannabis and tobacco industries. The company operates a licensed in-house research laboratory and its IP portfolio includes 16 patents granted and over 60 patents pending worldwide. The company received a cannabis research and development license from Health Canada in August (http://ibn.fm/mRaIh), and recently announced the closing of private placement fund-raising for gross proceeds of about $820,000 (http://ibn.fm/WFDoK) with additional warrant opportunities.
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.LexariaBioscience.com
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to LXRP are available in the company’s newsroom at http://ibn.fm/LXRP
