Medical cannabis in France: the DGS sets up a working group

After 4 years of discussions around the experimentation of therapeutic cannabis in France, and its launch almost 2 years ago, The Direction Générale de la Santé (DGS) has set up a working group to continue experimenting with medical cannabis.

This working group will meet for the first time on December 16, according to APMnews.

It includes «an update on the status of cannabis for medical use within the European Union», as well as discussions, which should have taken place in parallel with the first phase of the experiment, «on the different options available for entry into common law in France once the experiment has been completed».

It will bring together stakeholders in the experiment and external players involved in one way or another with medical cannabis.

The former will include Canadian cannabis producer Aurora and its French test laboratory Etypharm, Canada's Tilray and France's Medipha, Israel's Panaxia Pharmaceuticals and France's Neuraxpharm, Australia's Little Green Pharma and France's Intsel Chimos, as well as France's Boiron and Italy's Recodarti, the latter two being «only» on the list of replacements and currently supplying no product.

According to APMnews, a number of players more or less external to the experiment will also be involved, including :

• the American Curaleaf which acquired Emmac in 2021, with Emmac on the list of replacement suppliers (with Boiron as distributor)
• Jazz Pharmaceuticals and Almirall laboratories, Jazz has acquired GW Pharmaceuticals, producer of Sativex and Epidiolex, in 2021. Almirall is the distributor of these products in Europe. As a reminder, despite a marketing authorization in 2014 for Sativex, it is still not distributed. for objectively obscure reasons while Epidiolex is only distributed in dribs and drabs under nominative Temporary Use Authorizations (ATU)

Representatives of Leem (Les entreprises du médicament) and Gemme (Générique même médicament) are also invited, as well as members of the Agence Nationale de Sécurité et du Médicament (ANSM), the Direction de la Sécurité Sociale (DSS) and the Direction Générale de l'Offre de Soins (DGOS).