- Recent passage of 2018 Farm Bill clears way for farming of industrial hemp and production of cannabidiol (CBD)
- Photobioreactors currently used in cultivation of green algae, a high protein dietary supplement or whole food cultivated worldwide with multiple industry uses
- Project goal includes mass production of CBD from cell cultures of industrial hemp
- SinglePoint’s online CBD distribution subsidiary, SingleSeed, poised for significant growth as selection of CBD products increases in 2019
- Hemp-derived CBD market expected to reach $1.3 billion by 2022
SinglePoint, Inc. (OTCQB: SING), a fully reporting technology company providing mobile payments, blockchain solutions and ancillary cannabis services, is quickly taking advantage of its first-mover status in the CBD space with an investment in TorusMed Inc., which plans to develop CBD cell cultures from industrial hemp with photobioreactors. In a news release announcing the investment, SinglePoint said that the project’s goal is to ultimately have pharmaceutical grade CBD cultivated in a lab setting to ensure consistency of a premium product (http://ibn.fm/PUg9g).
Photobioreactors create a closed system, providing a controlled environment fed by either natural sunlight or artificial light that enables high productivity of plant cell structures. Photobioreactor systems are currently being used to produce algae, which has emerged as a popular element in industries like cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, biofuels, pollution control and more (http://ibn.fm/81jiv).
The recent passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized industrial hemp and removed it from the Controlled Substance Act, is good news for anyone interested in hemp, the THC-free strain of cannabis whose uses range from fibers to food to pharmaceuticals. A recent episode of Science Friday with Ira Flatow focused on farming the plant and the medical research underway studying the potential uses of CBD derived from hemp (http://ibn.fm/c51z3).
“Well, I just think that CBD is really exceptional,” Flatow’s guest, Dr. Esther Blessing, a researcher and assistant professor of psychiatry at NYU Langone Health in New York City, stated in the interview. “There’s been no other drug in the history of neuropsychiatry that has the potential to treat so many different disorders. I’m not saying that it does treat them all, but the evidence is good so far. So, it would be ideal to put aside all of these issues of legality and the fact that it comes from the cannabis plant and start to be able to treat it as a medicinal agent with controlled clinical trials and get it out to people who need it as quickly as possible.”
Teaming up with TorusMed in a project to mass cultivate CBD cell cultures using photobioreactors makes sense for SinglePoint on multiple levels. Development of pharmaceutical grade CBD that is cultivated in lab settings could potentially change the way industrial hemp and CBD are manufactured by reducing time, cost and resources while increasing consistency, safety and scalability. The project’s specific aim is to develop optimal protocols for mass CBD production from cell cultures of industrial hemp. Photobioreactors offer several advantages as compared to open-field farm cultivation, including, but not limited to, independence from weather and seasonal climatic conditions and scalable industrial and environmentally-controlled production.
SinglePoint plans to distribute the premium CBD upon completion of the development, and it is currently working with producers and manufacturers for distribution of industrial hemp CBD through its ecommerce site, SingleSeed.com. SinglePoint intends to increase revenue and sales through the subsidiary by growing its distribution to both retail and other channels.
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.SinglePoint.com
