Apollon Formularies plc (AQSE: APOL) , (“Apollon” or the “Company”), a UK based international pharmaceutical company specializing in medical cannabis and trading on AQSE Growth Market, is pleased to release its inaugural CEO’s Year in Review for 2021 letter to the shareholders from Dr. Stephen D. Barnhill, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Apollon Formularies.
Dear Fellow Shareholders,
It is with great pleasure and excitement that I am writing to you today in my first shareholder letter since being appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Apollon Formularies plc. Last year, 2021 was a year of remarkable accomplishments for our company. Today, we are a distinctly different organization than we were when we started. I am very pleased with the progress that has been made across all parts of the Apollon business during the year and I am confident the next 12 months will see significant growth as attention now turns to increased revenue generation and a global roll out of our medical cannabis products.
Indeed, this is an exciting time for a company to be in the medical cannabis business with widespread global interest in cannabinoid medicines. You may have seen some of the recent headlines in the news regarding Big Pharma’s new enthusiasm for the medical cannabis industry, including: “Pfizer Bets on Medical Cannabis With $6.7 Billion Acquisition” describing their acquisition of Arena Pharmaceuticals published by Forbes[1] and “Jazz Pharmaceuticals to buy GW Pharmaceuticals for US$7.2B in cash, stock” as announced by BNN Bloomberg [2].
The increased interest by Big Pharma easy to understand. According to the Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021–2030 report, “the global medical cannabis industry generated $6.82 billion in 2020, and is expected to reach $53.88 billion by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 23.6% from 2021 to 2030”[3].
Below, I will highlight some of Apollon’s accomplishments over the past year and also introduce you to some welcome additions to our highly expert team.
Public Listing:
In April 2021, Apollon Formularies plc was admitted for trading on London’s AQSE Growth Market under the symbol APOL and successfully completed a £2.5 million funding round. This public listing was notable as Apollon was among the first medical cannabis companies legally licenced to work with full-spectrum high THC medical cannabis products allowed to be publicly listed in London.
Successful Pre-Clinical Cancer Testing of Apollon Cancer Formulations:
I am happy to report that Apollon has completed development of 12 proprietary medical cannabis formulations including products for use in cancer patients. These highly specialized formulations were developed, in part, using artificial intelligence techniques under the supervision of Apollon’s Chief Science Officer, Dr. Herb Fritsche.
Dr. Fritsche is a world-renowned Clinical Chemist and former Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Chief of the Clinical Chemistry Section at The University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas for 41 years. He served as an invited consultant/advisor to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the Expert Panel for developing Tumor Marker Practice Guidelines for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), on the Laboratory Practice Guidelines Committee for the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry (NACB), on the Editorial Board of six international scientific journals, and as a consultant to many major international diagnostic companies.
Dr. Fritsche and I have worked together for more than 30 years in artificial intelligence derived cancer biomarker discovery for personalized medicine triage in diagnostics and treatment and have published many peer-reviewed publications together.
We sent nine Apollon proprietary medical cannabis cancer formulations for independent 3rd Party pre-clinical testing and validation to BIOENSIS laboratories in the United States. The results of the testing processed so far yielded extraordinary findings.
Laboratory results showed a number of Apollon’s medical cannabis cancer formulations, were successful in killing nearly 100% of cancer cells from 10 different cancer cell lines in 3D cell culture including triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), HER2+ breast cancer[4], ER+/PR+ breast cancer[5], hormone-sensitive prostate cancer and hormone-resistant prostate cancer[6]. The Company is yet to process the remaining results and will update the market of these in due course. 3D cell culture models allow researchers to recreate specific pathophysiological conditions and tumorigenic processes to identify potential biomarkers for therapeutic targeting or assessing cell response to therapies and drug efficacy[7]. The improvement in 3D culture technology has led to the generation of in vitro models that can encompass more physiological and tissue-specific microenvironments with the aim to overcome the drawbacks observed in other pre-clinical models and have better predictive value for clinical outcomes[8]. We were extremely pleased with these pre-clinical results.
