RE:Tetra’s Story In La Presse! Great exposure!AWESOME! I'm actually from Montreal and excited to know that my very own city will be exposed to TBP's mission! AMAZING exposure IMOP. La Presse is THE French Montreal news paper. It will be in every business's waiting room, every doctors office, every faculty lounge.. I'm getting more and more excited with every word I write!! I put the article through Google translate for those who don't understand French. See below. Can cannabis accompany patients with terminal cancer, relieve their pain and improve their quality of life more effectively than opioids? This is the hope of a small Canadian pharmaceutical company, which is launching in the coming weeks a large clinical trial in Montreal. Tetra Bio-Pharma's project is to create a Health Canada-approved dried cannabis pill, prescribed by physicians for patients with advanced cancer and reimbursed by insurance. If the company succeeds, it will be a first in the country. "Patients who are going to participate in the study are in the very late stage of cancer, almost terminally ill," explains Tetra Bio-Pharma CEO Bernard Fortier. Their pain is not controlled by the current medication, including opioids. So they no longer have other therapeutic options. These are people who have pain almost all the time. " Medical cannabis has been recognized in Canada since 2001. But many doctors are cautious when it comes to prescribing it, because the content of this cannabis is not standardized. Medical cannabis is also not reimbursed by the insurance companies or the Rgie de l'assurance maladie du Qubec. "There have been recent figures showing that a tiny minority of doctors in Canada prescribe medical cannabis," notes Fortier. Their college does not really allow them outside of a clinical study. But there is also the fact that they are not comfortable because they do not have the level of information and confidence they want. " The challenge of Bernard Fortier and his associates is to have their standardized medical cannabis pill approved. It contains 9.5% THC and 2.5% cannabidiol CBD, two of the active agents of cannabis. But to do this, Tetra Bio-Pharma must prove its effectiveness in relieving pain and "helping the quality of life" of cancer patients. The pill PPP001 - the trade name is not found yet - has already passed the first two stages of clinical trial. The third, the last before marketing, is scheduled to begin at the end of February in Montreal. 946 cancer patients will be enrolled. The trial will be supervised by the Sant cannabis clinic, near the Berri-UQAM metro station. Some patients will receive the real pill, which is smoked in a small aluminum pipe. Others will receive the placebo. "Based on the few data already available, there is potential for medical cannabis to reduce the need for opioids and even opioid dependence. The risk / benefit profile would be in favor of medical cannabis, "believes the CEO of Tetra Bio Pharma. Protect patients Invited to comment on this study by La Presse, Dr. David Roberge, head of the CHUM's Department of Radiation Oncology, generally welcomes this trial, as it could bring new knowledge. "The problem with cannabis for medical purposes is that it has not been subject to the same clinical studies as drugs. It is not prescribed like other drugs, he says. Insurers who reimburse the drugs do not refund it. Its efficacy for pain is not as rigorously demonstrated as for other drugs. " Dr. Roberge also believes that the arrival of a new drug approved, and thus reimbursed, could protect some patients. "I hear people saying that they buy their cannabis on the street because, according to them, it's cheaper than therapeutic cannabis. But they do not know what this cannabis contains. There, if they can get reimbursed for their cannabis drug, it stops this problem, "he says. Flats The radiation oncologist, however, expresses some flats. For example, he wondered whether a cannabis-based medicine could really be superior to what currently exists. "There are very specific and very effective drugs for treatment-induced nausea, for example. So cannabis will hardly compete with these drugs. But for the pain, maybe, "he says, adding that not all patients are comfortable with the sensation of cannabis. It also notes that terminally ill cancer patients are less likely to suffer from opioid dependence because of their life expectancy. "We see the negative effects of opioids in terminally ill patients, but we do not see them as much. We see the gear of dependence in patients with non-cancer pain with very long life expectancies. Many of these people end up with opiate-related problems. " Bernard Fortier, he is convinced that there is a niche in patients with advanced cancer for a cannabis-based drug. The small pill could be on the market as early as 2019 if the clinical trial is suitable for Health Canada. "The people, the government, everyone is asking a lot of questions right now about what medical cannabis can do," says CEO Tetra Bio-Pharma. There are a lot of question marks right now. We collected a lot of this data in our first phases and this third phase will add a lot more. I think it will be beneficial for the community. " Some studies on cannabis and pain An article published in the June 2016 issue of the American Pain Society newspaper concludes that medical cannabis can reduce the use of opioids in patients with chronic pain. Among 244 patients who used cannabis, the use of opioids fell by 64% (Boehnke, Litinas, Clauw). In a comprehensive literature review published in January 2017, the National Academies of Science, Medicine and Engineering note that "conclusive evidence" shows that cannabis can reduce nausea and vomiting in patients undergoing chemotherapy. A September 2017 article in the Annals of Internal Medicine notes that studies on medical cannabis can not prove that it works effectively on pain. The authors also indicate that cannabis induces a series of side effects, in particular because of its psychotropic nature.