Akanda’s CanMart partners with Phlo Connect and Cellen Life Sciences to dispense & deliver high quality medical cannabis products in the UK
Akanda Corp. ("Akanda" or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: AKAN), an international medical cannabis platform company, today announced that its UK import and distribution wholly-owned subsidiary CanMart Ltd. (“CanMart”) has partnered with Phlo Connect and Cellen Life Sciences (“Cellen”) to create a first-of-its-kind fully digital dispensing collaboration for medical cannabis. The strategic partnership strengthens CanMart’s existing partnership with Cellen’s digital Leva Clinic and expands its route to market in the UK with a dispensing model that is also fully digital while at the same time improving the experience for UK medical cannabis patients.
Phlo Connect integrates digitally with CanMart, Akanda’s UK-based, fully licensed pharmaceutical importer and distributor, to quickly and conveniently deliver prescriptions to patients throughout the United Kingdom. Initially, patients will secure prescriptions through the Leva Clinic, with product transferred through CanMart to Phlo Connect. Patients can then schedule delivery to their home or office. Phlo Connect is the UK’s leading API driven digital pharmacy infrastructure provider that seamlessly connects prescribers, pharmacies and patients for an end-to-end digital experience. Phlo Connect offers a 120-minute delivery service in London and Birmingham and next-day delivery across the UK. This process will be increasingly seamless for patients in the near future as Phlo Connect, Leva Clinic, and CanMart build additional digital interconnections.
“Akanda is committed to expanding access to high quality products for anyone in need, and that is qualified in the United Kingdom, a growing market for medical cannabis,” commented Tej Virk, CEO of Akanda. “Phlo Connect and Cellen are the ideal partners to make this happen, combining the UK’s first fully digital pharmacy with a digital dispensing model that is easy to use, secure, and real-time. Patients can arrange a specialist consultation and seamlessly connect to Phlo Connect’s smartphone app to arrange medical cannabis delivery. In the nascent UK medical cannabis market, patients currently suffer from excess friction as the prescription process, and last mile delivery is disjointed. We firmly believe that our solution is the best way to satisfy patients and get our 1P and 3P-supplied medical cannabis in their hands quickly and conveniently, which will greatly improve the patient experience.”
“We believe partnering with CanMart and Cellen will be a game-changer for medicinal cannabis patients here in the UK. By integrating with both CanMart and Cellen via our API driven pharmacy platform, we believe that this partnership is the first truly end to end digital experience for medicinal cannabis patients in the UK,” commented Adam Hunter, CCO of Phlo Connect.
Added Eric Bystrom, CEO of Cellen, “Our patients require access to new high-quality products without the friction and hassle of traditional dispensing services. This partnership is another example of our continuing efforts to build on our national, established relationships with the wider pharmaceutical community in innovative ways. We believe that CanMart’s access to high quality products as well as Phlo Connect's extensive capabilities in dispensing will go a long way to helping our service to our patients.”
The partnership with Phlo Connect builds on CanMart’s existing partnership with Cellen, a health tech company that provides treatment to chronic pain patients through its digital pain clinic, Leva Clinic, as well as through partners including the NHS, Boots and others. The Leva Clinic, which is licensed and regulated by the Care Quality Commission (“CQC”), is one of the first fully digital pain clinics in the UK. Through a multi-disciplinary clinical team of expert clinicians, clinical psychologists, physiotherapists and nurse consultants, the Leva Clinic supports patients through personalized online care plans. Cellen is also a medical cannabis supplier to Project Twenty21, the large-scale medical cannabis observational study monitored by Drug Science that aims to improve access to medical cannabis for those in need.
