TORONTO, April 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — MediPharm Labs Corp. (TSXV: LABS) (OTCQB: MLCPF) (FSE: MLZ) (“MediPharm Labs” or the “Company”) a global leader in specialized, research-driven cannabis extraction, distillation, purification and cannabinoid isolation, is pleased to announce the formation of its new Science Advisory Committee (the “SAC”), comprised of an internationally esteemed group of expert scientists, researchers and medical professionals.
The SAC will collaborate with the MediPharm Labs management team on advancements in the emerging fields of cannabinoid extraction and cannabinoid-based derivative science. This work will serve to further enhance the Company’s manufacturing platform and research practices, assist management in evaluating commercial opportunities related to technologies, testing and methodologies and provide guidance on partnerships with globally preeminent academic and medical institutions for cannabis research.
We are extremely proud to bring together this distinguished group of experts. Each member brings a specialized expertise across the fields of extraction, chromatography, formulation, commercial development and pharmaceutical or physician approaches to cannabis science and medicine.
Pat McCutcheon, CEO of MediPharm Labs
Together with our senior leadership team, the Science Advisory Committee will be instrumental as we advance the MediPharm Labs platform to drive continued and future growth, develop IP and remain on the forefront of cannabinoid-based derivative research and manufacturing globally.
Science Advisory Committee Mandate
The SAC’s mandate is to advise and assist MediPharm Labs in harnessing the potential of cannabis through innovation, best practices, thought leadership and strategic alliances in support of MediPharm Labs’ vision of being The Trusted Global Leader in Industrial-Scale Manufacturing of High-Quality, Cannabinoid-Based Derivatives.
Inaugural members of the Science Advisory Board include:
Jerry King, PhD
Dr. King is a world-renowned extraction expert with more than 53 years of experience in supercritical fluid technology, chemical separations, chromatography, and applied chemical engineering & chemistry. Prior to joining the department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Arkansas, he was Program Manager/Research Scientist in the Supercritical Fluid Facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Dr. King was also the Lead Scientist of the Critical Fluid Technology Group at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research. His research interests include the development of critical fluid technology for food and agro-material processing, materials science, and analytical applications, and his work in industry has included HPLC methods development for biotechnology, installation of process chromatography, and industrial analysis of saccharides and starch polymers, commercialization of processes dealing with environmentally-benign production of value-added agricultural and botanical materials, and CO2 – based cleaning and micro-electronics production. His R & D activities have involved extensive interaction with government regulatory agencies such as FSIS, FDA, FGIS, EPA, and DOE as well as Euro-based agencies. He has authored over 275 publications (191 are peer-reviewed, including three patents) in Supercritical Fluid Extraction, Supercritical Fluid Chromatography, and related separation techniques; and has lectured extensively on these subjects over the past 40 years at national and international symposia. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Supercritical Fluids, Italian Journal of Food Science, Journal of the American Oil Chemical Society, INFORM, and is a member of ACS, AIChE, AOCS, IFT, AOAC, ASTM, and US or international critical fluid technology groups. He is a Vice President of the International Society for the Advancement of Supercritical Fluids. Dr. King received his B.Sc. in Chemistry and continued with graduate studies at Butler University and the University of Utah. In 1973, he received his Ph.D. in surface characterization studies using chromatographic methods from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, and conducted postdoctoral research in physical chemistry at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Dr. King was named Scientist of the Year at NCAUR in 1993, and elected to Who’s Who in America, among many other awards, designations and acknowledgements for merit.
Miriam McDonald, MSc
Miriam is currently the Director of Pharmacy at Health Sciences North, Northern Ontario’s largest hospital located in Sudbury. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from the University of Toronto and a Master of Science in Pharmacology from Queen’s University. Her career has encompassed positions as the Executive Director of Community Development at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, and CEO of the Northeastern Ontario Medical Education Corporation wherein she worked throughout northern Ontario to facilitate community-based medical clinical education. She also served as Director of Planning and Development of Cambrian College, Executive Director of Cambrian Foundation, and Director of Pharmacy, Director of Rehabilitation Services and Assistant Executive Director of Therapeutic Services at Laurentian Hospital. She was Project Coordinator for the planning and construction of the Glenn Crombie Special Needs Centre, the Northern Centre for Advanced Technology, and the Northeastern Cancer Centre. She is the author and co-author of several health-related papers and studies and is very active in the community both on a personal and professional level. She has been recognized by Northern Ontario Business as a Woman of Influence, was the recipient of the Sudbury Business and Professional Women’s Club highest honor – the Bernardine Yackman Award, and has served on the Women’s Health Council of Ontario and Ontario Judicial Appointment Advisory Committee. Raised in northern Ontario, her strongest interest is in projects that address access to health, education, and information technology in northern Ontario.
Arshad Hack, MHA, MD
Dr. Hack is a practicing Family Physician with over 10 years of clinical experience throughout the full spectrum of clinical medicine. Over this period, Dr. Hack has become widely respected as an engaged and empowered patient advocate, visionary leader, and innovator. In addition to his busy clinical practice which includes acute inpatient medicine as a Hospitalist, outpatient medicine, obstetrics, palliative care, and long-term care, he has held the position of the Chief of Family Medicine at Joseph Brant Hospital, Burlington, Ontario since 2010. Dr. Hack’s experience includes playing a key role in the interdisciplinary development of the Geriatric Assessment Clinic – a clinic focused on further meeting the needs of our aging community and their families – as , well as his role in Quality as the Medical Director of the Rehabilitation and Complex Continuing Care Program at Joseph Brant Hospital. Dr. Hack is a systems thinker with a passion for collaboration, integration, quality management and evidence-based medicine. He always strives to enhance the patient experience in the health care system through his own personal care and systems influence and works with teams to continuously move patient outcomes further forward. Dr. Hack works as a health care consultant, helping other organizations enhance the quality of care, and efficiency in providing such care. Dr. Hack holds an Honours Degree in Botany and Human Biology from the University of Toronto. He subsequently completed his Masters in Health Administration from Dalhousie University. While working as a hospital administrator at Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care where he planned the development of the integrated Brain Health Clinic, he found his passion for clinical medicine and completed his Medical Degree at the University of Connecticut. He returned to Canada in 2007 to further hone his skills in Family Medicine at McMaster University and utilize his skill set for the benefit of his community and all Canadians. Dr. Hack holds an Assistant Clinical Professorship at McMaster University in the Department of Family Medicine, and is actively involved in medical education, both with Family Medicine Residents, and medical students.
Markus Roggen, PhD
Dr. Roggen’s latest project, Complex Biotech Discovery Ventures, is a fundamental research laboratory and Contract Research Organization to the cannabis industry. His industry experience is in crop protection, plant analytics and pharmaceutical manufacturing, and his research interests lie in the metabolite composition and behaviour throughout the production cycle, Supercritical Fluid Extraction process optimization, and development of innovative therapeutic formulations. Dr. Roggen received his master in science degree from Imperial College, London, UK in 2008, his graduate degree is organic chemistry at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich in 2012, and was awarded an DAAD postdoctoral fellowship to pursue further training in physical organic chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla from 2013-2014. He has held numerous positions in the cannabis industry including Laboratory Director for Davinci Laboratories of California, and Vice President, Extraction at the cannabis manufacturer, OutCo. Dr. Markus Roggen is also a trusted advisor and mentor for multiple start-ups, start-up accelerators and organizations. He has held advisory positions at Bloom Automation, a cannabis robotics company, Redfield Proctor, a waste management company, and was former co-chair of the NCIA Scientific Advisory Committee.
Matt Archibald
Matt has enjoyed a 20+ year career in developing, managing and improving commercial operations for the Natural Products, Pharmaceutical and Cannabis Industries. His early work history included grafting rare species, clonal propagation, planting and harvesting, whereby he improved efficiency through project management, mechanization, and automated continuous flow processing at industrial scale. Matt developed new products and production techniques for his clients in the Natural Health Products and Supplements industries including vacuum-evaporated concentrates, isolation of polysaccharides, spray-dried extract powders and ethanolic extracts. In 2003, he co-owned and led Hawaii Phytomedicine and Associates where he employed distillation for the purposes of a new concentrate product line and expanded his addressable market with the rigorous standards of the EU Norm, USDA National Organic Program and Japan Agricultural Standard organic certifications. In 2010, Matt founded and continues to lead Botanical Process Solutions, which facilitates R&D, product development and manufacturing development for cannabis entrepreneurs in North America. His specialized consultancy work spans: Equipment design; Facility design and management; Intellectual property and brand licenses; Certified organic nutrient systems with the highest available nitrogen and phosphorous on the market for cannabis; Cannabis processing expertise in supercritical CO2; Short path and rolled film high vacuum distillation; Continuous and Semi-Continuous winterization; Decarboxylation; Terpene fraction distillation; Terpene isolation; Infused Product Formulation; and through his partner network, automated packaging, filling and capsule solutions as well as Centrifugal Partition Chromatography.
Les Brown, PhD
Dr Leslie Brown, Managing Director of AECS-QuikPrep Ltd is a practising method development chromatographer and chromatography instrument designer. Les founded AECS in 1983, with the company initially specializing in chromatography method development and chromatography instrument design for blue-chip pharmaceutical, agrochemical, environmental and instrumentation clients. AECS later evolved to become AECS-QuikPrep Ltd (“AECS”), shortly after the company became involved in an AECS-designed and retailed product, the Quattro Counter Current Chromatograph (“CCC”) in 1993. Since 1993, Les has constantly been involved in the evolution of CCC and Centrifugal Partition Chromatographs (“CPC”) instrumentation. In addition to instrument design, Les has also been a prime instigator of novel methodology development techniques for countercurrent/liquid-liquid chromatography/extraction. Les has given innumerable lectures on CCC/CPC worldwide, published peer reviewed papers, two book chapters on CCC, and trained users in CCC/CPC, in approximately 20 countries since the early 1990’s. Les has been involved in cannabinoid purifications for over ten years. AECS has many Quattro CCC, Quattro CPC, and Partition CPC users for cannabis and other target compound-based purifications worldwide. Les has led projects with operational scale ranging from laboratory research projects from milligram, grams, kilos per day, to potentially multiple tonnes per annum in GMP production. Projects have included commissioning work for a major American Blue-Chip Pharmaceutical Company for high throughput, combinatorial research. Les still enjoys working in the laboratory on challenging research, either for contract chromatography method development projects, or novel custom purification of known targets and unknown bio-actives, from natural products and synthetic research projects. AECS is one of the longest established chromatography instrument design and production manufactures in the United Kingdom. Now in collaboration with their partners, Couturier, France, they are undoubtedly the World Leaders in HSCCC / HPCCC / HPL-LC™ / CPC / HPCPC. Les has co-published CCC papers with researchers in UK, France, Brazil, and China as well as successfully supported and/or co-authored multiple-million Euro research grant applications with different European-based Universities and Corporate clients. Les completed his BSc (Hons) in 1974 at the University College of Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom, his PhD at the University of Manchester, United Kingdom in 1978, and was a Research Fellow at Plymouth Polytechnic, United Kingdom from 1978 to 1983.
About MediPharm Labs Corp.
Founded in 2015, MediPharm Labs has the distinction of being the first company in Canada to become a licensed producer for cannabis oil production under the ACMPR without first receiving a cannabis cultivation licence. This expert focus on cannabis concentrates from our cGMP (current Good Manufacturing Practices) and ISO standard clean rooms and critical environments laboratory, allows MediPharm Labs to produce purified, pharmaceutical-like cannabis oil and concentrates for advanced derivative products. MediPharm Labs has invested in an expert, research-driven team, state-of-the-art technology, downstream extraction methodologies and purpose-built facilities to deliver pure, safe and precisely-dosed cannabis products to patients and consumers. MediPharm Labs’ private label program is a high margin business for the Company, whereby it opportunistically procures dry cannabis flower and trim from its numerous product supply partners, to produce proprietary cannabis oil concentrate products for resale globally on a private label basis.
Through its subsidiary, MediPharm Labs Australia Pty. Ltd., MediPharm Labs has also completed its application process with the federal Office of Drug Control to extract and import medical cannabis products in Australia.
