Kanabo buys Materia to become Europe's largest public cannabis company

Kanabo, the first medical cannabis company to list on the London Stock Exchange, has confirmed the acquisition of Materia, a medical cannabis and wellness company focused on the European market.

Materia is well established in the European market, with subsidiaries in Malta, Germany and the UK. Following the acquisition, Kanabo will control production, from the initial sourcing of raw materials and in-house manufacturing, through to distribution to pharmacies and the end consumer. This includes direct entry into Germany, whose market size was over 200 million euros last year, and is expected to remain the dominant market as the European market grows to a projected total size of 3.2 billion euros by 2025 according to Prohibition Partners.

Deepak Anand, CEO of Materia, said: «We are very excited about joining forces with the Kanabo team. As the first medical cannabis company approved for listing on the London Stock Exchange, Kanabo's ambition to be a market leader matches our own, and we believe our combined infrastructure will generate significant value for our shareholders, partners, customers and patients.»

Strong synergies

Materia's Maltese subsidiary operates a state-of-the-art, EU-GMP-certified plant, strategically positioned for the processing of medical cannabis flower and oils.

Thanks to this facility, Materia Malta is able to import cannabis flower from its global network of growers and process it into EU GMP-certified medical cannabis for export to distributors in Europe. Materia Malta also intends to use its facilities and know-how to produce medical cannabis extracts. The facility's current flower production capacity is 6,000 kg per year, representing a potential sales value of 36 million euros based on a combined average selling price in several key European markets.

Kanabo was one of the first cannabis companies to list on the London Stock Exchange earlier this year. Its flagship product is the VapePod, which delivers measured doses of medical cannabis extracts via a high-tech vaporizer.

Kanabo's research will be commercialized through Materia, including formulas developed for Kanabo's VapePod device to treat specific medical conditions such as insomnia, post-traumatic stress disorder, neuropathic pain and anxiety.

In Germany, Europe's largest medical cannabis market, Materia has pharmaceutical wholesaler status, enabling it to import and sell medical cannabis products to German pharmacies. Materia has agreements with numerous suppliers and has been distributing its medical cannabis portfolio to pharmacies for over a year.

In addition, Materia's UK subsidiary operates in the wellness sector as a distribution platform, selling several leading brands through Handpicked CBD, one of the UK's largest CBD e-commerce marketplaces. Kanabo will leverage Handpicked CBD to acquire customers for its own range of CBD products and to feed its future pipeline of innovations.

This acquisition will enable Kanabo to build on the significant progress made this year, including a supply agreement with Greek cultivation facility Hellenic Dynamic, a new EU-GMP production line in partnership with Pure Origin, and an agreement with PharmaCann for a unique production line for VapePod cartridges.

The company also recently announced the expansion of its partnership with the LYPHE Group, facilitating the delivery of Kanabo's medicinal cannabis formula to the UK this month.