- Title: Uruguay’s cannabis growers go global with first overseas shipment
- Date: 2nd October 2019
- Summary: CANELONES, URUGUAY (SEPTEMBER 27, 2019) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF CANNABIS PLANTS ON PREMISES OF FOTMER LIFE SCIENCES BUILDING URUGUAY FLAG ON UNIFORM OF EMPLOYEE VARIOUS OF EMPLOYEE AT WORK VARIOUS OF FOTMER LIFE SCIENCES CEO, JORDAN LEWIS, AMONGST PLANTS (SOUNDBITE) (English) FOTMER LIFE SCIENCES CEO, JORDAN LEWIS, SAYING: "It's being projected that the medical cannabis market globally should reach about a hundred billions dollar over the next ten years. Here in Uruguay we believe that our business in combination with the other business that will come on line can capture a significant portion of that. So our aim is to create a billion dollar industry here in Uruguay over the next five to seven years."
- Embargoed: 16th October 2019 12:49
- Keywords: cannabis marijuana Uruguay export
- Location: CANELONES + NUEVA HELVECIA, URUGUAY
- City: CANELONES + NUEVA HELVECIA, URUGUAY
- Country: Uruguay
- Topics: Health/Medicine,Editors' Choice
- Reuters ID: LVA001AZEKU9Z
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: In a white, sterilised laboratory on the outskirts of Uruguayan capital Montevideo, biochemists are carefully cultivating plants for a booming multi-billion dollar global market: medical marijuana.
The company Fotmer Life Sciences has just made the first ever commercial shipment of medical cannabis from Latin America, 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of dried flower with high levels of active ingredient THC destined for patients in Australia.
The landmark export underscores the burgeoning market for legal cannabis, that medically can be used by cancer patients to manage chronic pain or to reduce spasms associated with multiple sclerosis. The global market is expected to reach $66.3 billion by 2025, according to consultancy Grand View Research.
Fotmer Life Sciences CEO Jordan Lewis said the shipment to Australia - of dried marijuana flowers high in tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - was a key step, adding in the coming weeks he hoped to announce shipments to the European Union, where Germany is the key market.
In the coming weeks the firm will begin exporting 100 kilograms (220 pounds) each month of dried flowers and cannabis extracts.
Uruguay has been ahead of the curve developing its local industry. Six years ago it passed a law regulating the local industry. In 2017, Fotmer received the first license to produce 10 tonnes of dried cannabis flowers annually for medicinal use and earlier this year an approval linked to cannabis oil.
In the company's facilities, in a science park complex 21 kilometres (13.05 miles) from Montevideo's centre, Varela's team of scientists are taking things seriously.
At the site, temperature, humidity, lighting and concentration of carbon dioxide are permanently measured and controlled. The company has 350 marijuana plants of 27 different genetic varieties.
Each pot has a number and bar code, part of a traceability system to track the history of each of the plants and possible genetic issues, as well as each step in the production process.
The plants are then transferred to an industrial plant in Nueva Helvecia 120 kilometres (74 miles) away, and put into greenhouses with drying, curing and packaging machinery. At harvest time, 180 people arrive to work between the two industrial complexes.
Uruguay's support for the industry put it at the forefront of the growing global market.
(Production: Juan Bustamante, Miguel Lo Bianco) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2019. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None