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A leading supplier of medicinal cannabis increased its Australian patient numbers by 27 per cent over a three-week period in April, representing 10 new patients every business day.
In an interview with Business News Australia earlier this month, Althea Group (ASX: AGH) managing director and founder Josh Fegan said patient numbers were "starting to spike", supported by an outreach program with doctors to persuade them of medicinal cannabis' benefits while providing technology to track results.
Today the company announced it had achieved the 650-patient milestone with 140 patients added between 4-26 April, and 145 healthcare professionals have now prescribed Althea's products.
"The rapid uptake has been driven by our Medical Science Liaison (MSL) team on the ground and Althea Concierge, the Company's proprietary platform that allows patients, doctors and pharmacies to manage their medicinal cannabis needs in Australia," says Althea COO Patty Holmes.
"A key benefit of Althea Concierge is that it is able to greatly reduce application times for HCP's looking to prescribe medicinal cannabis."
Holmes adds the company is recruting more MSLs due to increased demand for its services, while in the update Althea pointed to research from Cannvalate Australia showing our country has the fastest-growing market for medicinal cannabis globally in terms of percentage month-on-month growth.
"Following the strong growth in Q3 FY19 that saw us pass the 500-patient mark, we are very happy to see further acceleration in the growth rate of patients in the first weeks of Q4 FY19," says Fegan.
"Our team continues to focus on educating Healthcare Professionals about the benefits of Althea's pharma-grade medicinal cannabis products and providing support to the patients who require them.
"The ease of use of Althea Concierge has also been a key factor in our success and is complementary to our RACGP and ACRRM accredited medicinal education portal, MEDIC. I look forward to providing the next update on Althea's increasing uptake soon."
AGH shares were up 6.38 per cent this morning at $0.50.
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