Avicanna Executive Team On U.S. Rescheduling Opportunity
U.S. federal rescheduling is now moving cannabinoid-based products toward Schedule III. In our latest Trade To Black podcast, host Shadd Dales sits down with Avicanna (TSX:AVCN / OTCQX:AVCNF) CEO Aras Azadian and Dr. Karolina Urban, Executive Vice President of Scientific and Medical Affairs, to talk about what U.S. cannabis rescheduling could mean for cannabinoid-based medicine. The shift could have some profound implications for a Canadian cannabinoid biopharmaceutical company that has spent a decade building toward exactly this moment.
There are three converging opportunities created by rescheduling: a surge of interest from pharmaceutical and institutional investors now taking cannabinoid therapeutics seriously, the ability to advance clinical programs into U.S. trial sites under the more permissive Schedule III framework, and a higher regulatory bar that rewards companies with established intellectual property and clinical infrastructure — precisely where Avicanna has focused its efforts.
Azadian argues that the vast majority of cannabis companies — in both Canada and the U.S. — are not built for a true pharmaceutical model. Meeting GMP standards, building CMC packages, and running phase one through phase three clinical trials requires a fundamentally different skill set than operating dispensaries or producing consumer products, and that gap cannot be closed quickly with capital alone.
Dr. Urban identified chronic pain and anxiety-related conditions as the most immediately relevant therapeutic targets for the U.S. market under Schedule III. Avicanna’s ongoing phase two randomized controlled trial in osteoarthritic pain and a phase one THC anxiety study at the University of Calgary as the clearest near-term pathways toward co-development partnerships with larger pharmaceutical companies.
Avicanna’s proprietary Qwik rapid-onset nanotechnology platform, designed to increase absorption speed and reduce variability in oral cannabinoid delivery, is possible as a licensing-ready asset well suited to U.S. pharmaceutical partnerships — particularly as prescribers push away from smokable formats toward standardized, dose-controlled medicines.
On the international front, Azadian believes one thing to be true: adult-use cannabis is a domestic market play, while medical and pharmaceutical cannabis is inherently international. He pointed to the company’s Colombian subsidiary as a strategically positioned, GMP-compliant supplier capable of serving global markets at competitive price points, with the possibility of one day exporting into the United States itself.
This and more in this episode.
