Product grown and extracted at the Sundial Olds cannabis production facilities could be utilized in studies around the world, according to Sundial Growers Inc. president Geoff Thompson.
Thompson made that statement during an interview with the Albertan.
He was responding to news that Sundial has just inked a deal with the University of Saskatchewan to study the effectiveness of cannabis as a treatment for dementia, a disease primarily seen in elderly people which includes severe memory loss, among other things.
In July, the company announced a partnership with the University of Calgary to study the medicinal applications of cannabis.
Sundial is also working with a University of Lethbridge professor to study how cannabis affects inflammation and to understand its potential for fighting cancer.
"The Olds facility will be one of the largest grow facilities in Canada. We'll produce strains there for both medical and for adult use purposes. We'll also have an extraction facility. We'll be using both the strains and the extraction within our research projects," Thompson says.
"The products that are produced in Olds will be used within the trials we do at (the) University of Saskatchewan and other universities."
Thompson says a lab in the Olds facility will be a big part of that.
"Within our extraction and processing building that we'll have in Olds we'll have a lab, and within that lab we'll be creating formulations based on different strains of products that we grow in Olds and create extracts that will be then used within the medicinal trials," he says.
Beyond that though, Thompson sees a great opportunity for product created in the Sundial Olds facility to be utilized in research on medical marijuana undertaken around the world.
"The relationship that we're creating with the University of Calgary and (University of) Saskatchewan we expect are going to create global opportunities to work with other research institutes around the world," Thompson says.
"Some of those institutes already have relationships with the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Calgary, but the research impact is actually going to be a global impact.
"Most of the rest of the world is a medical cannabis-led market. Almost all of Europe today is medical cannabis first.
"And so we think that the research that we're doing, starting in Canada, is going to then leverage us into a global research role where we're proving out the efficacy of medical cannabis -- not just in Canada, but (in) every other country around the world that supports medical cannabis. So it could be a game changer for us," he adds.
"We're early in the game of proving that out and there's lots of work to be done, so I see this as being a long play that we're making to prove out globally that we're going to be a leader in medical cannabis."
