Pure Sunfarms, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Canadian company Village Farms (NASDAQ: VFF) (TSX: VFF) has just exported its first shipment of medical cannabis to Australia.
Pure Sunfarms will sell its medical cannabis through Kind Medical, a new brand launched by Altum International Pty Ltd. Altum is an Australasian company that partnered with Pure Sunfarms for its Australian expansion. Village Farms currently has a 12% ownership interested in Altum, though Altum seems to operate independently.
The cannabis shipment Pure Sunfarms sent to Australia is part of a three-year supply deal between the two companies. This first cannabis shipment includes high-THC cannabis flower produced by Pure Sunfarms in British Columbia.
While Canada’s medical cannabis market is older and more established than Australia’s, you only need to look at the numbers to see why big cannabis companies like Pure Sunfarms want to come here. Though Australia’s medical cannabis market is less than six years old, it’s worth $200 million in 2021 — up from $100 million in 2020.
Patient numbers are also skyrocketing. According to their own data, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has granted over 150,000 applications for cannabis medicines through the Special Access Scheme (SAS). Approximately 48.5% of these approvals were made this year alone.
With figures like that, it’s no wonder that when Altum’s CEO Ean Alexander commented on Pure Sunfarm’s Australian expansion, he said this:
We are confident that the top-selling everyday premium products we produce in Canada will be favourably received by medicinal cannabis patients in Australia.
Though Pure Sunfarms may not be a household name here, it’s one of the largest cannabis operations in Canada. Currently, the company is halfway through building a 1.1 million square foot (102,193 square metres) medical cannabis facility in British Columbia.
And considering that Pure Sunfarms is now operating in Australia, cannabis from the facility may reach Australian patients someday soon.
