JUL 01, 2020

New Venture Will Commercialize Products From Cannabis Research

WRITTEN BY: Angela Dowden

Though the history of cannabis dates back at least three thousand years, the workings of the endocannabinoid system—the network of neurotransmitters and receptors that enables our bodies to benefit from chemicals in the plant—is still not widely understood, nor routinely taught in medical schools.

Big gaps also exist when it comes to the emergence of safe and standardized cannabis-derived drugs and nutritional products. It’s at the intersection of these two areas that a new company, CReDO Science, has been formed. It’s mission? To commercialize patented products generated from investigation of the cannabis plant and the endocannabinoid system, with the ultimate aim of ‘making cannabis safer and better’.

Ethan Russo, MD, a board-certified neurologist and globally recognised cannabis specialist with 24 years in clinical cannabis research, is one half of the CReDo Science team. The other is Nishi Whiteley, a cannabis author and educator with 30 years of business development experience. A campaigner for law reform, she also sits on the board of the Foundation for an Informed Texas, a cannabis advocacy organization. 

Referring to projects CReDo Science has in the pipeline, Russo told Leafly they are keen to develop techniques that will extract a wider range of phytochemicals from the cannabis plant. “I’m a big proponent of the entourage effect, which requires synergy of terpenoids and cannabinoid components. And yet, many of the extraction techniques really end up wasting, particularly the terpenoid fraction,” he informed the website.

CReDO Science will concentrate their efforts in six initial areas for which provisional patents are in progress: a novel extraction technique for cannabis; an over the-counter product for a common condition that currently has only toxic or poorly effective treatments; a non-cannabinoid nutritional product from cannabis with expected broad anti-inflammatory effects; an inexpensive diagnostic test for two conditions that currently lack specific tools (so-called “diagnosis of exclusion”); a novel household disinfectant that will zap coronaviruses.

 

Sources: Leafly, CReDO Science