Portugal: Akanda will supply Cansativa with cannabis flowers grown in Sintra

Akanda Corporation (NASDAQ: AKAN) today announced that it has signed a multi-year agreement with Cansativa GmbH, one of Europe's largest medical cannabis companies, to supply EU-GMP quality THC dried flower varieties grown in its Portuguese operations through from Holigen, based in Sintra. To the Cannareporter, Tej Virk, CEO of Akanda, said that “this is a great victory for cannabis in Portugal” and that this agreement involved “several months of work” and “fantastic teamwork”.

This agreement marks one of the largest contracts for medical cannabis to be exported from Portugal to serve the emerging European market and is certainly Akanda's most substantial commercial development to date.

Under the terms of the agreement, Akanda will supply Grupo Cansativa with two EU-GMP quality THC dried flower varieties for distribution and sale to all pharmacies in Germany via the Cansativa platform. The contract specifies initial deliveries of a minimum of 1.000 kg within the first 12 months, with a right of first refusal (ROFR) to assume additional quantities, which may result in full utilization of Holigen's 2.000 kg per year in-house production capacity. The initial shipment is expected to include up to 250 kg of each variety to be supplied by Q2022 XNUMX.

“This agreement with Cansativa represents one of the largest supply agreements in the nascent European medical cannabis industry and is certainly Akanda's most substantial commercial development to date,” said Tej Virk. “Our EU GMP certified growing facility in Portugal has the quality and scalability to meet the growing demand for medical cannabis in fast growing markets across EMEA such as Germany. Once available, our strains will rank among the highest THC-level medical cannabis products available in the EU. We look forward to a long-term relationship with Grupo Cansativa, a professional and collaborative partner who shares our mission to expand access to medical cannabis to improve quality of life. The fact that we signed this contract just two months after Akanda closed the Holigen acquisition shows tremendous partnership and hard work on both sides.”

Recent problems in Lesotho should not hamper operations in Europe
Virk also told Cannareporter that he will not let "any other turmoil in our company's portfolio get in the way of this execution" and that this contract is the result of "a fantastic team effort".

Akanda has recently seen its operations in Africa threatened for the liquidation of the main cultivation facility in Lesotho, with subsidiary Bophelo Bioscience being liquidated by the country's Supreme Court, in what Akanda said was "retaliation" by Louisa Mojela, a former executive director, who was unhappy that have been dismissed from the company's Board of Directors. The situation came just weeks after the dramatic shareholder uprising at Akanda, which saw its entire board of directors, except CEO, Tej Virk, fired from the company.

Akanda is now struggling to reverse an “unauthorized” decision, recover lost loans and prevent the South African business from falling into complete insolvency. On the other hand, the transition from the Portuguese Holigen, from Flowr Corporation to Akanda will have been quite peaceful, with Tej to assume a good relationship with Tom Flow.

Cansativa is the leading importer and distributor of medical cannabis in Germany, with a distribution network in the country that includes direct connections to all pharmacies, various suppliers and distributors of pharmaceutical grade cannabis. Cansativa is positioned as a one-stop shop and offers one of the largest multi-brand medical cannabis portfolios on the market. Over the past five years, Cansativa has partnered with most major cannabis companies and received a financing of 13 million euros by Snoop Dogg (similar to Portuguese AceCann), becoming one of the main players of the cannabis industry in Europe. Since the grant from the Federal Institute for Medicines and Medical Devices (BfArM) in Germany in August 2020, Cansativa is the only company with approval to distribute German-grown medical cannabis.