Creso enlists cannabis icon and Canopy Growth founder Bruce Linton

Creso enlists cannabis icon and Canopy Growth founder Bruce Linton

Creso Pharma (ASX: CPH) has appointed Bruce Linton (pictured), industry pioneer and founder of Canopy Growth Corporation (TSE: WEED), to the role of strategic advisor as the medicinal cannabis developer raises nearly $9 million.

The appointment of Linton is a coup for Creso and will see the accomplished entrepreneur work closely with CPH's board to shape its long-term strategy and operational initiatives.

It comes as other movers and shakers in the cannabis sector Bod Australia (ASX: BDA) and MGC Pharma (ASX: MXC) have announced breakthroughs of their own today.

As the founder and ex-CEO of Canada-based Canopy Growth Corporation, Linton oversaw the company's growth from startup to being the first cannabis producing company to list on the New York Stock Exchange.

At its peak, the company's market capitalisation under Linton's leadership hit US$15 billion. Canopy Growth is still the largest listed cannabis company on the NYSE.

During his time with Canopy Linton also secured market support for more than 16 rounds of financing of more than US$5 billion in public capital markets and private placements and more than 30 M&A activities.

He currently sits as executive chair of Gage Cannabis Co. and has since diversified into the psychedelic drug space as the director of a psychedelic-inspired medicine company Mind Medicine Inc.

In addition, Linton is the co-chairman and former CEO of technology company Martello Technologies Group Inc. (CVE: MTLO) and co-founder of Ruckify Software.


Australia's top 20 cannabis companies


"Bruce brings a wealth of invaluable knowledge and a deep network of cannabis industry contacts to Creso Pharma and we anticipate that his appointment will greatly assist us in achieving our near term operational milestones and longer-term goals," said Creso director Miri Halperin Wernli.

"We continue to target international distribution agreements in a number of new markets and progress product development initiatives that will unlock considerable shareholder value."

In return for his services as strategic advisor Creso will issue 30 million options to Linton, each with an exercise price of $0.039 and an expiry date of five years from the date of issue. This consideration is subject to shareholder approval.

Linton's appointment comes as Creso confirms it has received firm commitments from investors to raise $8.992 million through the issue of 309 million fully paid shares.

Of the $9 million, $7.992 million was committed from institutional, professional and sophisticated investors, and $1 million was committed from Creso Pharma chairman Adam Blumenthal.

Funds raised will go towards the repayment of debt and amounts owed to secured lenders to redeem outstanding convertible notes, development of the company's business units in Canada and Switzerland, operational expenses, the acceleration of growth across the company's animal and human health CBD product lines, and costs associated with the placement.

"We are delighted with the strong level of demand among from investors in this placement, and this support is very pleasing," Blumenthal said.

"Importantly, we will emerge from this placement with a much stronger balance sheet. This provides the company with significant financial flexibility to exercise many of its key short-term strategic initiatives."

Bod purchase orders more than double

Medicinal cannabis producer Bod (ASX: BDA) has achieved record growth during the first quarter after purchase orders more than doubled.

Announced today, the company says it has received a total of 2,630 purchase orders of its MediCabilis product - a 165 per cent quarter-on-quarter uplift.

Bod attributes the growth in prescription volumes to continued product uptake and strong brand recognition in Australia, as well as the company's nationwide clinical observational study launched in July 2020.

CEO Jo Patterson anticipates Bod will achieve continued sales growth during Q2, particularly as the company's UK operations scale up.

"Receiving these purchase orders for our Medicinal Cannabis product, MediCabilis range, is a great achievement for Bod and we are very pleased with the ongoing increase in sales," said Patterson.

"Bod has achieved market leading brand recognition in Australia through clinical trial and education initiatives, which has directly assisted growth."

MGC launches CannEpil app

Another listed cannabis company has announced a breakthrough today with MGC Pharma (ASX: MXC) launching its new CannEpil app.

The software will provide medical professionals with access to the International Library of Cannabinoids (ILC) as part of MGC's collaboration with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT).

The ILC is a world-first centralised platform compiling the diverse range of existing data on the therapeutic benefits of cannabinoids, representing a major step forward for the industry by providing transparent and comprehensive information on treatments, therapeutic benefits and wider implications of medicinal cannabis.

MGC's app will record patient responses to medical questionnaires as part of their treatment plan, and the treating practitioner will be able to view the responses in real-time.

MGC will also have access to the data on a fully anonymised basis to evaluate and report the efficacy of CannEpil.

"Data is extremely important in the healthcare industry and is something that is not widely collected or stored at this time within the medicinal cannabis sector," said co-founder and managing director of MGC Roby Zomer.

"The app and the ILC provides the medical community with access to what doctors need the most in order to start adopting and implementing phytocannabinoid treatments into their treatment toolkit.

"The use of the data we collect in this way is designed to aid the Phytocannabinoid industry as a whole and to fill the void where there has been a significant lack of knowledge and data, responsibly collected and maintained. MCX believes this data will be invaluable for future product development, health and safety studies, and much more."

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