Friday, March 29, 2024

High expectations for Tasmanian medicinal cannabis farm

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ASX-listed local and international supplier of medicinal cannabis ECS Botanics is offloading its production enterprise in Tasmania’s Northern Midlands.

The fully operational facility near Cressy is being offered for sale as a going concern through David Goodfellow and Matt Childs of CBRE Agribusiness.

“Our vendor has spent years researching and developing the industry, creating this remarkable ‘turnkey’ asset,” Childs said.

“The sale presents a rare opportunity to secure a new facility and medicinal cannabis compound, with all of the supporting infrastructure, allowing a new operator to continue production from day one.”

ECS cultivates and manufactures medicinal cannabis products in both Tasmania and Victoria, and supplies domestic and overseas markets. Last year, it secured a five-year, $4.5 million deal to supply Polish company Alivio Spolka with GMP-manufactured medicinal cannabis, and a one year rolling supply agreement with local company Canngea, after it took over Murray Meds early in the year as part of a $1 million deal.

The fully permitted and licensed ESC enterprise is currently a low THC facility – THC is the main psychoactive ingredient of cannabis – spanning 44.62 hectares of land south of Launceston, with land and infrastructure to support a significant expansion. It is currently licensed to produce tonnes of organic medicinal cannabis annually and would require little capital expenditure to become a high THC enterprise combining indoor or glasshouse with outdoor or protected cropping.

Improvements also include offices, staff hospitality facilities, a low THC medicinal cannabis manufacturing shed, drying rooms, dehumidifiers, a lab room and a large security vault.

The property features 64 megalitres of water entitlements, with direct access to the Cressy Irrigation Channel and features a fully automated irrigation and fertigation system delivering water to two 17-hectare centre pivot irrigators in the open fields, as well as drip irrigation to the site developed for medicinal cannabis production.

It is fully secured with and features a CCTV monitored security system with scan entry.

A new main switchboard and three-phase transformer were recently installed.

Other infrastructure includes an original shearing shed with sheep yards, machinery and hay sheds, timber horse stables, and a three-bedroom homestead.

Expressions of Interest close 3rd August.

Medicinal cannabis was legalised in Australia in 2016, but many products remain only available through a special access scheme. A NSW parliamentary inquiry last month heard that 180,000 applications had been approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration as of October last year, with an estimated 70,000 active patients nationally.

Construction began last year on a $400 million production facility in Toowoomba that would be the largest of its kind in the world.

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