If you can’t beat them, try to silence them? Citing concerns about the lack of proven safety via the FDA regulatory approval process for cannabis, Arizona-based opioid manufacturer Insys Therapeutics (NASDAQ: INSY) has contributed $500K, a record amount, to defeat Arizona’s cannabis legalization ballot initiative. Insys manufactures opioid product Subsys, a sublingual fentanyl spray, and is awaiting DEA scheduling of its recently approved synthetic THC drug, Syndros™ (dronabinol oral solution), which has been approved for anorexia associated with weight loss in patients with AIDS and for nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy.
Insys is also developing potential products from synthetic CBD, though it is lagging rival GW Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: GWPH), which has already completed two Phase 3 clinical trials for its botanically-derived CBD, Epidiolex, and is expected to share results from a third late-stage trial later this month. Insys is under investigation for its sales and marketing practices of Subsys, with a salesman pleading guilty to fraud earlier this year.
Read Christopher Ingraham’s “A maker of deadly painkillers is bankrolling the opposition to legal marijuana in Arizona”: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/09/a-maker-of-deadly-painkillers-is-bankrolling-the-opposition-to-legal-marijuana-in-arizona/
