UK Edition
GW Pharma pledges commitment to UK growth as it cancels London listing
GW Pharmaceuticals plans to expand manufacturing in the UK and boost cultivation of the cannabis plants it uses to make a treatment for severe epilepsy, its chief executive has said.
The British biotech is gearing up to submit Epidiolex, an experimental drug that has shown to be hugely effective in treating rare and life-threatening forms of childhood epilepsy, with US regulators in the first half of the year. Approval could come as early as the beginning of 2018.
The company has capacity to manufacture enough of the drug to treat 40,000 patients a year, but this will need to increase as Epidiolex gets the green light from regulators around the world.
Justin Gover, chief executive of GW Pharmaceuticals, said the plan was to increase capacity by extending GW’s existing UK manufacturing facility and growing more cannabis at sites across the country.
“If we expand, it will be in the UK,” he said. “We have no plans to grow plants or manufacture elsewhere.”
All of GW’s cannabis plants are grown in the UK, with most harvested by British Sugar in Norfolk in the largest glasshouse in the UK.
The company's commitment to British manufacturing is good news for the country's biotech sector, particularly given GW's decision in October to ditch its Aim market listing in favour of trading its shares exclusively on Nasdaq in the United States. The shares were officially delisted this morning.
“Today is the first day of leaving the Aim and I have mixed feelings,” said Mr Gover. “It was genuinely complicated to manage a dual listing and given trading and our investor base is dominated by US investors, it was more practical and will make our life more straightforward. But we are resolutely a British company.”
Asked if he was feeling bereft, Mr Gover replied: “I’m not sure I would go that far.”
Speaking from a major epilepsy conference in Houston, Texas, Mr Gover said GW has been garnering a huge amount of interest from specialist doctors.
“There is a lot of excitement about Epidiolex being approved here. It is a subject of a great deal of conversation and a huge amount of interest within the epilepsy community,” he said.
“It is all coming to fruition. In terms of timings, 2016 has all been about generating the data to support Epidiolex, next year is all about submitting and making it a reality.”
GW reported an £86.2m loss in the 12 months to the end of September, larger than the £57.1m it lost in the previous year, as it ramped up R&D spending and other investments.
Asked what the biggest challenge had been so far, Mr Gover said: “The 18 years it took to get to this point, dealing with the ups and down of our sector. We are not there yet, but are on our way. To have such strong data for this area of such high unmet medical need is incredibly rewarding."
Shares in GW were up 6pc to $119 by midday.