Probably insignificant but just noticed the Canntrust in the news again -
Mar/2018
CannTrust, a new company, was given a Health Canada licence in June 2014 to produce medical cannabis at a facility in Vaughan. The people involved in Canntrust included brothers Eric and Norman Paul, both pharmacists and entrepreneurs. Company documents show they initially produced cannabis in a 40,000-square-foot hydroponic indoor facility, and then a second, larger facility was added in the Niagara Region.
To people with permission to purchase cannabis for medical reasons, CannTrust sells oils, drops, and dried marijuana for smoking. The company website lists marijuana products with names like Royal Purple Kush, Diesel and Sensi Star. Shipping is free on all orders of $90 or more, the site says.
But the owners of the company, with their pharmacy background, speculated that the future of medical marijuana lay in pills that would deliver relief for six to eight hours. One investor told the Star that soldiers and others with PTSD “smoke and smoke and smoke to alleviate their symptoms.” Smoking, he said, provides short-term relief. A properly designed slow-release pill could help over a longer period.
An early investor in CannTrust was Jack Kay, Apotex’s CEO for many years and Sherman’s trusted right-hand man since 1982. Kay had over the years developed a friendship with Aubrey Dan from the rival Canadian generic firm Novopharm.
Dan’s father, Leslie, founded Novopharm, which the family eventually sold to Israeli firm Teva. In the early days, Apotex and Novopharm were engaged in constant battles, though Kay and Aubrey Dan got along well and served together on an industry council. Kay suggested in 2016 that Aubrey Dan invest in Canntrust, and he did.
Kay, who is now vice-chairman and CEO of Apotex, said he supported an eventual partnership between Apotex and CannTrust because “cannabis for medicinal purposes should not be ingested with the current and often used method of smoking.”……”
Mar/2018
Barry Sherman was helping to develop ‘pot pill’ for medical marijuana users
“The project to develop a slow-release medical marijuana pill was on. Just a year before his murder, Sherman gave the green light on what scientists at his generic drug firm, Apotex, and marijuana firm CannTrust call the “pharmaceuticalization of marijuana.” People suffering from chronic pain, depression, anxiety, seizures, post-traumatic stress disorder and other afflictions might one day benefit, say investors in the project.
“I think Barry decided Apotex better get in on the ground level,” said Aubrey Dan, a businessman who is involved in the project, but was once a Sherman rival in the generic drug world. “Barry was a true entrepreneur. He has always been a risk taker.”
Health Canada approval is estimated to be two years away, but if it comes, the pills would be a disrupter in the Big Pharma brand-name drug world, and for Sherman’s own generic firm, providing an alternative to highly addictive opioids and other pharmaceuticals. People who worked with the late Sherman say the so-called “pot pill” will be one of his greatest legacies.
“Barry went away and did his homework,” recalled Eric Paul, CEO of CannTrust. “Then everybody got on board.”….”
Today -
CannTrust's former CEO and two directors charged with fraud | Calgary Herald
“Fraud charges have been laid against CannTrust Holdings Inc.’s former chief executive Peter Aceto and two former directors, all of whom face possible jail time of up to five years if found guilty in a sweeping quasi-criminal case led by the Ontario Securities Commission.
Company co-founder and former board chair Eric Paul and former director Mark Litwin are also charged with insider trading following a months-long investigation by Canada’s largest capital markets regulator. The OSC moved in following blockbuster revelations in the summer of 2019 that a Health Canada inspection of the publicly traded company uncovered unlicensed cannabis growing at its Pelham, Ont. facility.
The three men are facing a total of more than a dozen counts that include allegations of making misleading disclosure to investors in a case that will be prosecuted in the Ontario Court of Justice due to its quasi-criminal nature, rather than before an OSC tribunal as a civil matter. This marks the first time the commission has gone after a public company using its quasi-criminal powers.
In a statement Tuesday laying out the charges, the OSC said the allegations “relate to efforts to conceal the illegal growing of cannabis at CannTrust over a 10-month period in 2018 and 2019.”….”
