In a two-month period that has seen one-time MMPR runt of the litter, T-Bird Pharma (TSX:V.TPI, Stock Forum) secure a major investment from a US biosciences firm, final municipal zoning approval for their medical marijuana grow facility, and submission of an application for their second production facility, the best news was apparently saved for today.
Health Canada has approved T-Bird for a full grow-and-sell license following a drawn out process that saw sales rights taken away when local zoning issues prevented the company from being able to take full advantage of their license.
According to a news release from the company Thursday morning, T-Bird “has received a notice from Health Canada dated May 6, 2015 confirming the renewal of its production license, and including the expansion of its license to include full authorization to commence medical marijuana sales.”
Those earlier zoning issues had dragged on the firm for much of late 2014 but, as I reported last December, the company had quietly been putting together the pieces required to navigate a bureaucracy that often changes the rules midstream.
Though the company has used its time to shift some focus into the area of research, today’s news is the final hurdle to be cleared for the company to surge forward into full production.
“We are very excited to have secured our sales license and look forward to begin servicing medical marijuana patients and executing on our patient acquisition and commercial roll out strategy. We can now begin providing Canadian patients with high quality medicinal marijuana,” said Dr. Bin Huang, President and CEO of T-Bird Pharma Inc.
T-Bird established itself as a company aiming to provide the highest quality medicines at a premium price early in its existence, with a plan to go hard at insurance companies in an effort to get them to see the value in accepting medical marijuana as a more effective, not to mention cheaper therapy for many afflictions.
The company recently rejigged with the sale of 45% of the company's stock to Medna Biosciences, which provided heavy hitting executive and boardroom muscle to get the company back on track.
Currently, the company is trading at a market cap of $21 million, a premium of more than 100% above what Medna paid for its piece of the company.
--Chris Parry
https://www.twitter.com/chrisparry
FULL DISCLOSURE: T-Bird Pharmaceutical is a Stockhouse Publishing marketing client.