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I Got High For Science: Inside A Human Trial With Cannabis Processor Nextleaf

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When Canada legalized marijuana, the Cannabis Act made it clear: in order for a company to test their products on humans at the development stage—that is, have subjects sample them before releasing them to consumers—it must be granted an additional class of license. Only with a research license, a document that requires a separate (and rather onerous) application can a cannabis-containing product be legally tested on humans.

This might not seem like that big a deal until you consider how poorly the first wave of cannabis products rolled out in Canada: despite being backed by billions of dollars, many large licensed producers found themselves plagued with scandals, chief among them product quality issues. In 2018, consumers complained of dry, underweight, and odorless cannabis, and then, when the second wave of regulations permitted edibles and vape products in 2019, infused beverages had issues related to canning and potency. The list went on.

Since then, the consensus is that quality has started to improve, and while not all companies are public about their utilization of the research license for human trials, a trend is emerging. Smaller companies with more strategic plays and less bloated employee rosters are beginning to carve out niches of their own thanks to another type of asset: IP.

From a Shipping Container to a Commercial Lab

Standing inside Nextleaf’s state-of-the-art commercial extraction lab in Coquitlam, BC, co-founder and chief technical officer Ryan Ko reminisces about his first exposure to cannabis processing. Let’s just say those first backyard experiments didn’t involve the proprietary (and much, much safer) closed loop system he and his team employs to make cannabis distillate today.

In 2017, he and co-founder Paul Pedersen saw a market emerging: it was clear Canada was going to legalize cannabis at the recreational level, but there was not yet a reliable processing solution for medical growers who wanted to turn their cannabis into extracts. 

“Products were going to be coming online and extracts were going to be available following the trends in markets like California and Colorado,” Ko says. “The idea was to provide technical solutions to cultivators. No one was doing extracts in Canada in the licensed world on a large scale.” 

The system was designed to be shipped from farm to farm in a 40-foot shipping container, essentially a smaller version of the closed loop system Nextleaf uses today. It wasn't long before Ko and team realized that running a fleet of vehicles between farms wasn’t sustainable. 

Around the same time, Health Canada rolled out a licensing scheme that would allow processors like Nextleaf to apply for a license and work with licensed producers in the adult-use market. Despite the industry’s early struggles, Nextleaf has plugged along through the first few frustrating years of legalization and is among an emerging lot of ‘little companies that could’.

Cannabis as a Tech Play

Nextleaf is distinguished from other processors in the space by its significant patent portfolio: it has been issued over 70 patents in 11 different countries around the world, with more than 50 currently pending.

“We made a decision early on to document and protect our intellectual property, so that’s been a very large talking point with our investor base,” he says. “They see our company as a tech play, as a company that’s planting the flag in the cannabis space for how we can hone technology.”

While not everyone sees the necessity of patents in the cannabis space, Ko points to Canopy Growth Corporation and its lawsuit against GW Pharma for patent infringement and suggests these situations are bound to pop up more and more as the industry evolves and matures.

Ko says Nextleaf’s extraction system in particular gives it an edge over other processors, primarily because of its size, but also because of its efficiency.

“We really minimize the human interactions with the product. We can go from cannabis biomass all the way to a refined oil without introducing any human interactions, and minimizing any human failures and inefficiencies,” he says. “That’s where we see ourselves having a huge advantage over others that might be running fleets and fleets of smaller pieces of equipment.”

For a consumer, the combination of scalability and efficiency translates to a more potent refined product at a lower price point, according to director of marketing Emma Andrews. 

“A more potent extract is capable through our process. Head to head, if someone else was using alcohol, it is a more efficient solvent than others such as CO2, so the process combined with our choice of solvent really equals a more potent extract that makes for a better consumption experience,” she says. 

Rapid Emulsion Technology: Not Just a Name

Over the past few weeks, Nextleaf has been busy bringing in lucky human trial participants as it tests out different vape cartridge flavors and potencies, as well as its patent-pending RAPID emulsion technology used to infuse beverages. 

“The R&D license on human trials is strictly for sensory experiences, so we’ve really tailored our trials around flavoring,” says Ko. 

Imagine a circle of participants seated outside a loading bay, puffing on vapes and sampling infused beverages while filling in questionnaires about flavors. Now imagine this writer’s pure glee when learning, that I too, had the chance to be one of the lucky participants.

Receiving and writing about products from a consumer perspective is one thing, but having those products served to you by the gloved hand of the scientist who formulated them is quite another. My expectations of anything labeled “rapid” are generally always low, but after sampling a few beverages totalling about 10 milligrams of THC, it took just nine minutes to feel a buzz coming on. 

The emulsion also mixed well with a host of different beverages, and didn’t come with that overwhelming chemical taste some cannabis beverages are known for.

With a pleasant high already going thanks to the RAPID emulsion beverages, it was time for the vape pens. Participants cycled through four, each with a different potency and flavor. Some were excellent, some were just okay, and honesty was encouraged.

“Before this, companies were either breaking regulations and testing products in non-compliant ways, or they were shooting blind,” says Ko. “That’s why you had companies releasing products that burned your throat, or the flavor was horrible. Now we can hone in on the flavors and formulations people actually like, because we’ll be able to get firsthand feedback.”

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