FastForward Innovations Ltd gets fillip as EMMAC begins medical cannabis

FastForward Innovations Ltd () shares rose on Friday as investee company said it has started making premium medical cannabis products in the UK ahead of its planned Nasdaq listing.

It is “a ground-breaking moment for the UK medical cannabis industry”, Ed McDermott, EMMAC UK’s managing director said in a statement.

READ: FastForward Innovations investment EMMAC to join NASDAQ through merger with SPAC Andina

EMMAC, which is Europe’s largest independent cannabis company and where FastForward has owns a 2.3% equity stake, said medical cannabis will now be more affordable for patients in the UK thanks to the completion of its ‘seed to sale’ vertically integrated business model.

EMMAC’s wholly-owned UK manufacturing subsidiary, Rokshaw Laboratories, which has been approved by the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, recently received its first commercial shipment of medical cannabis active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) from the group’s Spanish-based extraction and manufacturing arm, Medalchemy.

Medalchemy, which also has a cultivation licence along with EMMAC’s Terra Verde arm in Portugal, will also begin exporting medical cannabis API to other countries in coming months.

McDermott said EMMAC’s control of its own supply chain, from cultivation and extraction to manufacture and distribution, “allows us to offer a consistent, reliable and high-quality product in the UK at a price point that has hitherto not been possible”.

Antonio Costanzo, chief executive of EMMAC, added: “This commercial shipment of medical cannabis API from Medalchemy to Rokshaw is the result of EMMAC achieving the vision we have had from the outset: to establish Europe’s leading medical cannabis company.”

FastForward shares were up 1% to 8.49p by mid-morning.