Australian medicinal cannabis company Australian Natural Therapeutic Group has announced a merger with Canadian Asterion Cannabis and its wholly-owned subsidiary Asterion, with the companies joining to develop one of the largest renewable-powered medicinal cannabis growing, manufacturing and R&D facilities in the world.
Construction on the $400 million facility in the Darling Downs, near Toowoomba, is scheduled to begin in the next few months. The project will produce more than 500,000kg of medicinal cannabis a year and create some 1000 regional jobs.
Australian Natural Therapeutic Group (ANTG) CEO, Matt Cantelo, said the agreement represents a golden opportunity for Australia to reach its full potential in growing and cultivating medicinal cannabis and serving the domestic and export markets.
“We see Australia becoming the global leader in medicinal cannabis production,” Cantelo said.
The company had signed a $92 million, nine-year deal with German company Cannamedical Pharma earlier this year to export commercially-grown Australian medical cannabis flowers to Europe.
“Once we get the scale we need, we will be working to ensure medicinal cannabis is more accessible to Australians,” Cantelo said.
“This has meant we could mostly meet the demand to the general market, but in the coming years we see demand will absolutely outstrip supply.”
The first 10ha glasshouse and manufacturing facility is due to be up and running by the end of next year, with phase two another 10ha glasshouse, and phase three after that an additional 20ha one.
“Through this new partnership we will be able to expand our range to meet the growing number of conditions being prescribed by doctors.”
CEO of Asterion, Stephen Van Deventer, said the merger of Asterion and ANTG fits in with both companies’ short and long term strategies.
This provides early revenue for Asterion and scalability to ANTG. We are extremely excited with this merger as both companies have the same vision, priorities and mindset”.
A partially binding agreement-Letter of Intent (LOI) has been signed by both parties.
SOURCE: https://www.manmonthly.com.au/news/400-million-medicinal-cannabis-facility-create-1000-jobs-regional-queensland/
