In episode 14 we spoke with Darryl Davies, Co-Founder and COO of Cannvalate. Darryl is an industry early adopter with over 15 years experience in Healthcare/Harm Minimisation. Darryl is on the Board of Directors for Cannvalate and works closely with top-tier global medical companies. He has also hosted multi-award winning medical educational events having established Australia’s first University led medicinal concept of cannabis leadership program.
Key Points
1:03 – Darryl Davies worked in Ad Action in which he specialised in handling psychological dependency on cannabis. He moved to Australia in 2011 and started working as a manager in an NGO looking after kids in foster care. In an attempt to switch careers, he attended a few seminars and felt drawn towards medicinal CBD. While working with Canton to encourage participation in the cannabis industry, he met his founding business partners who realised the huge potential in the late part of the supply chain in the cannabis industry. Together, they formed Cannvalate to familiarise people with the medicinal concept of cannabis.
6:52 – Darryl was of the view that initially, there were only 500 prescriptions with little access for patients. He believed that there was an absence of an agency that could encourage the doctors to prescribe medicinal cannabis.
8:02 – Darryl revealed that mostly people came to him with psychological addictions and substance abuse. Through their initiative, Darryl made sure that industry must have medicalised image.
9:12 – Darryl explained that Gail Wong, who is chief medical officer, proved to be an asset for Cannvalate due to his vast experience in doctor to doctor education. He described that his company worked very hard to convince the doctors of the therapeutic application to medicinal cannabis.
11:26 – Darryl asserted that the side effect profile of medicinal cannabis is amazing as compared to other medicines. He spelled out that initially the medical community was pushing back and then gradually they wanted more exposure.
13:12 – Darryl states that from a patient’s perspective, either they could have a discussion with current doctor who can be provided consultation by Cannvalate or they could approach Cannvalate directly. He asserted that patients who have gone through various therapies could be prescribed quite easily.
16:40 – Darryl believed that the application of medicinal cannabis is mostly focused on symptoms rather than the actual condition. He informed that medicinal cannabis was beneficial for a diverse range of diseases including Chron’s disease, neurological pain, anxiety and sleep disorders.
18:46 – Darryl iterated that the main services provided by Cannvalete in the B2B niche comprised mainly of safe storage and effective delivery services. Additionally they also aided license producers in showcasing their products along with clinical research trials of various medicinal cannabis substances.
22:40 – Darryl asserted that although the current market is not suitable for recreational usage, yet, the landscape might change at any moment.
23:53 – Darryl expressed hope that the Canadian experience could help in propelling the industry and some ambitious license producers forward with efficient manufacturing and delivery system. Therefore, he was hopeful of a transition in medicinal cannabis industry sooner than later.
25:26 – Darryl demonstrated that clinical trials were the most exciting part of medicinal cannabis where academic could look at generic CBD products and analyze its data in detail to suggest its complementary usage. Furthermore, he believed that it presented an excellent opportunity for drug development to acquire patent library.
28:08 – Darryl stated that although medicinal cannabis could be grown domestically, however, an intricate data analysis was required to ascertain its particular advantages which was not possible in the backyard.
31:44 – In response to a question, Darryl agreed that overall impact and efficacy of medicine varies from one patient to another which could be checked with the help of data collection.
34:14 – Darryl believed that it could take Australia between 5-10 years to legalise the recreational use of cannabis.
Link
Cannvalate: https://www.cannvalate.com.au/