Pure Global Cannabis Inc (CVE: PURE) Medical and Wellness Product Producer

Pure Global Cannabis Inc (CVE:PURE) (OTCMKTS:PRCNF) (FRA:1QS) CEO Malay Panchal envisions Pure Global as a cannabis 3.0 company that focuses on developing and manufacturing medical and wellness products. Unlike many leaders in the industry, Panchal, a pharmacist by trade, brings significant patient experience and pharmaceutical connections to the company. Panchal believes the consumer cannabis market is primarily comprised of wellness products; as a result, Pure Global is developing nutraceutical and bioceutical products to meet this demand. Pure Global has developed its own vertical farming system, designed to significantly increase yields, for its Brampton facility. While the company is in the midst of obtaining its sales license from Health Canada, Pure Global is also looking for partnerships and affiliations with medical groups and clinic networks.

Transcript:

James West:   My guest is Malay Pachal – sorry, Panchal. My guest this segment is Malay Panchal, he’s the CEO of Pure Global Cannabis Inc., trading on the TSX Venture under the symbol PURE. Malay, thank you, and welcome to the show.

Malay Panchal: Thank you, James, for having me.

James West:   You bet. So Malay, Pure Global is a newly arrived LP to the whole mix. Tell me about the company, what’s the growing footprint, what’s your game plan?

Malay Panchal: Sure. So I’m the founder and CEO of the company, and I founded the company about four and a half years ago. I’m a pharmacist by trade, and come from a background of developing IT companies as well. I’ve deployed my first B2B startup in the pharmalogistics area, connecting pharmacies to their suppliers, then went on to community practice, where I deployed a holistic pharmacy concept. Had hopes of taking that online, but with the cuts that come, decided to leave that sector and went onto an industry where I worked with some of the largest brand pharma manufacturers as well as CROs in developing data-driven solutions for better patient adjourns and CRO automation.

Came across the MMPR in 2013 and I was dumbfounded by the fact that a new sector was being born, and that not too many health care professionals were leading some of these companies. You’ve got people with all walks of life, and coming from the pharmaceutical background, lends to some benefits and understanding how to deliver medicine, health care products to the communities that need it.

And so the company set out to carve out a space in the medical and the pharma and the wellness segments, developing manufactured products. We’ll be experts in cultivation, but really our focus is being sort of the Cannabis 3.0 where it’s going to be those post-derivative products.

So we’re a newcomer into the sector, but we get the huge benefit of correcting the mistakes that our predecessors have made, and building, really, a better, faster ship.

James West:   So you’re focused 100 percent on the medical segment?

Malay Panchal: Well, medical segment is our primary first foray into the segment; we have big relationships with some of the largest medical groups in Canada, namely Apple Tree Medical, which has over 700,000 patients in their database, very excited to be working with them, where we’re going to have a direct IT interface, where patients, once they register, their medical document comes right to our system for faster processing.

We’re also going to be doing a real-world, evidence-based study with them, one of the largest of its kind, which will give us observational data to take to the medical community both nationally and internationally.

So definitely medical is a main aspect of our business, but from that, we’re also looking to develop the pharmaceutical and wellness products consumers are going to desire.

James West:   Okay. So the – you recently announced on November 15^th that Ross Hendry had joined you from Corby Spirit and Wine; that sort of indicates at least an acknowledgment of the significance of the recreational sector. So is the – what is it about Pure Global that I, as an investor, what would you tell me as to why I should invest capital with you, whereas all these other companies, by comparison, would be said to have a head start?

Malay Panchal: Sure. So again, as I mentioned, we get to be the second wave advantage, if you will. We get to learn from the mistakes of our predecessors; we get to focus on where the high-margin products and opportunities come to me. The people that we bring to our team, like Ross, we’ve got world-class individuals really coming from CPG supply chain and distribution backgrounds. It’s going to be branding, it’s going to be white labeling, manufacturing quality products.

What we’re setting out to do is become one of the most trusted cannabis brands. A lot of our predecessors have sort of rushed out of the gates, erected things, but not taking the meticulous steps of doing it sort of the right way, if you know what I mean, lending to, you know, reduced risks.

So for us, slow and steady is going to win this race. We’re going to develop a niche of products that will be sort of in the premium craft category.

James West:   Okay.

Malay Panchal: Giving us better margins, and yeah, hopefully a leg in the international space as well, which is our focus.

James West:   Yeah. So how much money have you raised to date?

Malay Panchal: We’ve raised about 25 million to date. We had an RTO round which we raised about 11 million, and just did a recent convertible debt to about 10 million. So we’re well financed, and no debt.

James West:   Is this going to be focused strictly on the Canadian marketplace, or are you going to move towards international as the markets open up? What’s the game plan?

Malay Panchal: Canada really is, for us, a platform to do our R&D and our development strategies. It’s a springboard, really, into the international markets. For us, the larger space is definitely international; several-fold, Europe, South America, and eventually the United States once the regulations come online there.

James West:   Okay. So sounds to me like being from a pharmacy background, are you going to be focusing on developing products sort of along the nutraceutical, bioceutical line that don’t necessarily need FDA and Health Canada approval, but nonetheless speak more to the medical side or the general wellness side of the cannabis sort of array?

Malay Panchal: James, you hit the nail on the head: that’s exactly what we’re going to be developing. We like to say everything but rec. for us, the consumer market is primarily comprised of wellness consumers, and really, CBD is going to be infused in every wellness category. It’s a multi-trillion-dollar industry around the world, and so indeed developing those nutraceutical products, the food and beverage products that are going to cater to the wellness consumer, and then of course, that lends a lot to the medical side, where it’s going to be catered to those medical patients that need particular dosing options where physicians can be more confident of the way they prescribe and taper and infuse proper medication, as it were.

James West:   Do you think that the development of the industry on the wellness side is ultimately going to act as a lightning rod to the big pharma companies or the big wellness brands globally, who are going to start to say, Well, we missed the boat on the whole cannabis thing, but let’s just pluck the best in class, best in breed companies out there?

Malay Panchal: Absolutely, James. I believe that wholeheartedly, both on the pharma side, with the pipeline of pharma products that we’re looking at; we’ve got a dozen categories that we’re looking at now. These are long-term plays, so we’re looking at about half a dozen that we’ll initiate with. Ultimately, these could be individually multi hundreds of millions of dollars of sales around the world.

So pharma will definitely be looking into scooping up the right players that have planted the right seeds, if you will, and have the right product pipeline; and similarly, the nutraceutical or those CPG companies, instead of creating things themselves, are looking at operations that have proper acumen, proper set up, GMP-grade ISO-grade facilities, and robust brands with white label capabilities, as well.

James West:   So is Pure Global looking for partnerships, or investment, from large pharma brands at this point?

Malay Panchal: Absolutely. We’re in talks with a number of pharma companies to do joint ventures with; we want to develop products in conjunction with these top players, where they may have products already in certain categories where we can add CBD to it, potentially, and use their distribution channels for branding and R&D methodologies and so forth.

So absolutely, we’re looking to partner with the top players, both on the pharma side, nutraceutical, and the distribution channels, as well.

James West:   Okay. You mentioned that you were also going to have expertise on the cultivation side. What does your growing footprint look like in Brampton, and what is your production capacity of the whole operation at this point?

Malay Panchal: Great question, James. So when I started this operation as a pharmacist, and then applying for a production license, the first person I needed to hire was a production lead. And so I set out to find the most talented grower I could, and after interviewing hundreds of MMAR types and which are more enthusiasts or cottage industry experts, when I finally met the chap that we’ve hired, Nader Gheshlaghi, PhD-level, masters in biotech, these are true scientists that are coming into the sector now.

There’s science behind commercial horticulture; we’re taking that science, and we’ve actually developed a patented vertical farming system. This will enable us to actually use more of the square footage and develop more of the canopy in a vertical environment. So this is still in the process of being validated; we have 40,000 square feet in Brampton, multiply that by three or five X, it will give you an idea of the kind of production that we’re anticipating when things are said and done, and that is currently being deployed.

We started our model with the ability to do distribution, buying in bulk, knowing that there would be a lot of product in the marketplace and growing supply; get to market, get our customer base started, and then come online with our cultivation and high capacity production methods.

James West:   Okay. So is there products in the marketplace now, or if not, when will they be available?

Malay Panchal:     So we’re just in the midst of obtaining our sales license, so it’s imminent. We had our sales inspection just about over a month ago now; we just submitted our last response, hopefully, from Health Canada, which were very minor observations, so we’re anticipating our sales license in the coming days or weeks, really. And we’re right now sitting at the gates ready to launch with our e-commerce set up. All our back end systems are set up, customer service, our product packaging line all ready to go. Inventory, we have about $3 million worth of inventory ready to start deploying to just the medical community, and our focus really will be the medical community for the next couple of quarters, because there’s a huge insufficiency in servicing that community. They’re going to OCS in places to empty shelves, to limited availability, and so the medical line is sort of the avenue we’ve chosen at the onset.

James West:   I myself became a patient because I couldn’t get delivery of what I – I’m not going to say needed, but what I like to have on hand, which is completely CBD oriented; I’m not really interested in getting high anymore, higher than I am right now, at least. So that’s interesting. So what’s your distribution channel at the outset?

Malay Panchal: So the distribution channel, again, we’ve got the engagement with this large medical group. We’re also affiliating with many cannabis groups, clinics, across Canada. We’re looking to acquire a clinic, actually, pretty soon, that has a patient base as well.

James West:   Oh, great.

Malay Panchal: And so getting to the medical community that way, branding ourselves in the medical community as experts in terms of the medical angle. So that’ll be our first foray; a couple of other channels that I can’t quite speak to yet, but that’ll get us started out of the gates, get the wheels in motion, and then as things develop, we will increase the throttle.

James West:   Fantastic, Malay. Well, that’s an interesting story, and one I will be following with interest. We’ll have you back in a quarter’s time and see how you’re doing. Thanks for joining me today.

Malay Panchal: Thank you James, so much, for having me.

Original article: Pure Global Cannabis Inc (CVE: PURE) Medical and Wellness Product Producer

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