267
LXRP: PoViva was a sort-of “loose-end” that we needed to wrap up. There is good long term potential for our tea and coffee-house brand, but fractured ownership made funding for it difficult. Also, PoViva was formed perhaps two years too early for the market, and our expectations are that 2018 and 2019 will finally deliver long-sought regulatory environments that will make is easier to deliver hemp oil based products. Since we already owned 51% of PoViva, it made a lot of sense to consolidate that.
CIM: Thank you. Although to a degree all ships rise with the tide, Lexaria’s share rise to the 52-week high was on the heels of the aforementioned patent received – why is that a “groundbreaking” event?
LXRP: In my own opinion, the market still has not granted Lexaria full value for the new patent allowance. This new allowance is for the utilization of our DehydraTECHTM delivery technology not just for all cannabinoids – psychoactive and non psychoactive – but also for fat soluble vitamins, nicotine and for non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen and aspirin. Each of these markets present larger and more valuable opportunities to Lexaria than does the global cannabis market. In fact the nicotine industry worldwide was about 100 times larger last year than the legal cannabis market. This patent allowance is groundbreaking because nowhere in the world, to the best of our knowledge, can you currently find nicotine or NSAID products in an edible form acceptable to consumers: our technology has the potential to open a brand new class of products.
CIM: It cannot go without mention the significant interest in the industry since Constellation Brands announced it would take a minority interest in Canopy Growth Corporation. How is the Lexaria “tech” disruptive in the edibles market and in particular in beverages? In your reply, can you touch on what is meant by “acceleration” and “deceleration”?
LXRP: It’s ironic because Lexaria has been speaking publicly for two years about the inevitability of alcohol and tobacco companies, first, entering the cannabis market. Lexaria’s DehydraTECHTM technology has already been formulated several times into beverages such as beers and other water-based beverages at the request of potential corporate partners. Lexaria’s formulations are repeatedly selected by volunteers as the best tasting and, usually, the fastest acting. We’ve had discussions and formulation experiments with potential licensing partners in both Canada and the USA to formulate cannabis beverages that do not taste like cannabis. Excluding America, global corporations are already looking at involving