Demecan is the company that has succeeded in competing with Canadian giants to grow medical cannabis in Germany on German soil, in accordance with German pharmaceutical standards. Founded in 2017 in Berlin by three young doctors, the company has been operating Europe’s largest indoor medical cannabis production facility since 2020, in a converted former slaughterhouse in Saxony.
Adrian Fischer is a physician and scientist specializing in neuromodulatory systems and pain mechanisms, including the effects of cannabinoids. In 2017, he founded Demecan with two fellow doctoral students: Constantin von der Groeben, a lawyer, and Cornelius Maurer, an economist. Their goal: to ensure that German patients have access to pharmaceutical-grade medical cannabis produced in Germany.
The stakes are high. Germany legalized medical cannabis in 2017 and is now issuing a call for bids for 13 production contracts. Seventy-nine companies are bidding. The two largest contracts were awarded to Aurora Cannabis and Aphria (5 lots each, for a total of 4,000 kg over four years). Demecan, the only German startup in the group, secured the remaining 3 lots (2,400 kg over four years) through an initial joint venture with the Canadian Wayland Group.
The production facility is located in Ebersbach, near Dresden in Saxony, in a former industrial complex covering 120,000 m². Behind 24 centimeters of reinforced concrete, steel doors, and 150 cameras, hundreds of plants grow under yellow artificial light in rooms with precisely controlled environmental conditions.
In 2022, Demecan obtained its EU-GMP certification—a pharmaceutical standard equivalent to that used for medications such as those produced by Sanofi—and delivered its first batch of cannabis flowers to the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM), which then distributed them to German pharmacies. First batch: an OG Kush-based indica strain containing 18–22% of THC.
With a current production capacity of one metric ton per year—which its executives say could be increased tenfold—Demecan claims to supply 55% of the German medical cannabis market, including imports. The partial legalization in Germany in 2024 freed Demecan from the requirement to sell exclusively to the government: the company can now develop its own strains and sell them directly to pharmacies, ushering in a new phase of growth.
Philipp Goebel, former head of the Neurology & Immunology business unit at Merck, joined the executive team in 2022 to lead marketing and distribution.
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