Its ticker symbol on the TSX is WMD. Its CEO Bruce Dawson-Scully appeared on BNN moments after it started trading publicly in April 2017. Its niche is medical cannabis for seniors. And it’s a Health Canada-licensed producer (LP) under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR), a part of the 2009 Legislation Revision and Consolidation Act. Weed MD Rx Inc. is one of 45 licensed producers in Ontario and one of 80 in Canada. What sets Weed MD apart from other medical cannabis producers across The Great White North is its foundation. “I come from a family business,” Bruce explained. “I have spent most of my career operating, managing, and developing long-term care residences and retirement homes. I am third generation in that sector, actually. As a family we’ve dedicated most of the years of our lives taking care of seniors and we really helped pioneer that industry. We developed a really great housing program for seniors because we understood the market. Over the years we’ve established a great sense of how to build quality programs by focusing on enhancing the quality of life for seniors and that’s really the same mantra on which I’ve built Weed MD.” Bruce’s family recipe business plan is working. Since growing and storing its first plants in early 2016, Weed MD has gone from operating solely in its 27,000 square foot greenhouse in Aylmer, Ontario – with an annual yield of 1600 kilograms of dried cannabis annually – to an expanded operation that covers an approximate 220 000 square feet in a massive Strathroy, Ontario greenhouse – with an anticipated annual yield of 20 tonnes. “And that’s just the first phase of our production in our expansion plan. In totality we will have over 1 000 000 square foot of production space operating at our farm,” Bruce said. By David MacDonald B ruce, 20 tonnes of annual production from one of the 80 licensed ACMPR producers seems like a big piece of the pie – but I don’t have much in the way of a reference or comparison considering the early stage of your industry. BD-S: That’s significant. That certainly pushes us into the
realm of a larger producer in this industry and it gives us a lot of latitude for growth and expansion. We found amazing partners who had a greenhouse in Strathroy that’s about 620 000 square feet – so close to 14 acres of greenhouse. In addition, we are currently building an additional 440,000 square feet. Our first phase of that will be in five acres of production or approximately 220 000 square feet. We will be producing about 20 tonnes of cannabis during that first phase. First and foremost, we want to ensure that we are always able to provide for the needs for our patients – and we do have a lot of patients. Outside of our seniors market that we take care of cur- rently, we’re north of 1200 patients that we are caring for right now and growing every day.. So, it is a lot but in the industry as a whole right now there seems to be a shortage of cannabis. A lot of LPs are expanding their operations to be able to accommodate not only the medical market but also in anticipation of accommodating the adult recre- ational market that’s slated for summer 2018. So we want to make sure that number one we can provide for our medical prescriptions for our patients. That being said, we’re also excited to expand and participate in the adult recreational market as well. One of the big factors that made me really dig-in to this industry was the issuesissues, so many seniors deal with because of polypharmacy. There are seniors in long-term care who take between 10 and 14 prescriptions per day on average. Many of these seniors look for ways to manage
135 DECEMBER 2018 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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