Little Green Pharma has been granted a licence to supply psilocybin from the Western Australia Government Department of Health.
Australia’s first medical cannabis producer Little Green Pharma is expanding into psychedelic medicines, announcing it has been granted a Schedule 9 licence from the Western Australia Government Department of Health to supply psilocybin to eligible licence holders under the Medicines and Poisons Act 2014 (Western Australia).
The company says it has created a specially formed subsidiary to investigate the research developments in psychedelic medicines and the evolving regulations around the compounds in Australia.
Mushroom cultivation and supply
Since its founding in 2016, Little Green Pharma has made significant investments in cannabis product development, sales and marketing and cultivation capabilities. It was the first Australian company to provide Australian-grown cannabis medicines to patients in the country, having been granted a Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) licence for its manufacturing facility in 2020.
The company, which has an extensive history producing and managing Schedule 9 drugs through its current cannabis operations, says that the recent granting of a Schedule 9 licence for the supply of psilocybin clears a major hurdle for it to enter the field of psychedelics.
It will be utilising its existing investment in cultivation and drug manufacturing infrastructure and its experience and expertise in botanical drug-based products to cultivate psilocybin mushrooms for use in medical research – hoping to extend its current GMP licence to cover psilocybin manufacture.
Little Green Pharma managing director, Fleta Solomon, commented: “The field of psychedelics is a logical fit with our long term stated goals of solving real patient problems and transforming their lives.
“We have developed so much experience over the years through the cannabis industry and we genuinely believe we can now bring that to bear on the development of the psychedelics field in Australia. The existing investment in our West Australian cannabis cultivation and manufacturing facility means we can meaningfully enter the field with minimal incremental capital spend.”
The company is also making headway to sponsoring a ground-breaking Perth-based clinical trial into psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy.
Read more: UK scientists to research use of psilocybin in end-of-life support
