A biotech company developing medicine that “mimics” the painkilling effects of cannabis will list in London.
Financial Times reports that Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies, a start-up established at Oxford University four years ago, is on the brink of raising around £16.5m, which is reportedly much more than it had originally aimed for.
Also, the paper says, after the listing the company’s value is expected to be about £51.5.
Neil Mahapatra, OCT co-founder and executive chair, told FT that they decided to enter London last year after the Financial Conduct Authority stated that medical cannabis companies were allowed to list in the London Stock Exchange.
The first companies, such as Kanabo, the Israeli-based company that develops special vaporisers to distribute cannabis-derived products for medical patients, have already joined and they’ve been a massive success.
Mr Mahapatra said: “We were thinking about a private funding round but market conditions appear buoyant for our type of company.”
He added that his company wants to follow the steps of GW Pharmaceuticals, a huge UK-based medical cannabis company that reportedly sold $500m worth of cannabis-derived treatment for “childhood epilepsy”, Epidolex.
As a result, the company was bought for more than $7bn.
The twist, according to FT, is that Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies doesn’t manufacture the medicine from the cannabis plants but it makes compounds that “resemble” natural cannabinoids synthetically.
