Medical Marijuana: Clearing the smoke on a miracle drug

This is a guest post by OurCrowd Venture Partner and medtech investment advisor Dr. Morris Laster.  If ever there was a ‘miracle drug’, the top candidate would be cannabis. The range of clinical conditions that have had the potential for treatment with marijuana is extensive ranging from approved conditions with cannabis derivatives such as Sativex for MS induced neuropathic pain and spasticity, or Marinol for cancer treatment induced nausea and vomiting, and AIDS cachexia. Other conditions include Type 2 diabetes, obesity, various neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, or Huntingdon’s disease, glaucoma and the list goes on and on. The biggest challenges with medical marijuana are: Marijuana is best administered by smoking due to the combination of active ingredients and first pass kinetics Dosing variability due to individual smoking differences and plant material There is the potential for recreational drug abuse For the first time, there is a solution for the issue of dosing medical marijuana. Israel-based Syqe Medical has developed an inhaler that “druggifies” marijuana by providing clinically-proven standardized dosing, utilizing a cartridge based dose, uniform heating element and...

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