Portland, OR: Non-smoked, cannabis-based medicines could receive British regulatory approval as early as next year, GW Pharmaceuticals President Geoffrey Guy announced at the Second National Clinical Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics in Oregon last week. The London company is currently testing the efficacy of various marijuana extracts for analgesia and symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis in Phase III patient trials. Trial subjects administer the extracts via a sublingual spray.
GW expects to submit their results for government approval as early as this fall, Guy said at the conference, which was sponsored by Patients Out of Time. If the British government licenses the drugs, it is expected that other Western European nations and Canada will do the same.
In previous Phase II trials, nearly 80 percent of patients sustained “clinically significant therapeutic benefit” from cannabis – including relief from pain, bladder-related symptoms and tremor, as well as a 50 percent average reduction in their use of opiates.
For more information, please contact Paul Armentano of NORML at (202) 483-5500. Additional information on GW Pharmaceuticals’ clinical patient trials is available at: http://www.gwpharm.com.