"Bavaria Weed" is the only company in Bavaria that is now allowed to import and process medical cannabis in large quantities. The company is based in Herrsching, and the raw material is produced and packaged in Leipheim near Günzburg.
Herrsching - The manufacturing permit is only a few weeks old. So fresh that Thomas Hoffmann (58) didn't have time to put it in a frame and hang it on the wall in his office on Gewerbestrasse in Herrsching. Hoffmann, Stefan Langer (40) and Sebastian Pötzsch (38) have been working towards this moment for two years in order to meet all requirements. "Because how do you deal with a substance that has been equated with hard drugs such as heroin or cocaine for years and can now be prescribed?" Explains Hoffmann. For the authorities this was as new as it was for him and his partners in the management.
Cannabis has only been available on prescription in Germany under certain conditions since 2017 and is therefore "marketable". Hoffmann and Langer, both from Herrsching, business consultants and marketing managers, agreed that they should be involved. "More and more patients are switching to alternative medicinal products such as medical cannabis when all the common alternatives have not yet brought relief," says Langer, speaking from personal experience. He is an ADHD patient. Cannabis helps him focus and sleep better, he says. The medication is dosed as required.
Hoffmann and Langer brought Sebastian Pötzsch on board through the “patent pool group”. The Munich-based company helps to finance the company and supports its founding. "But we not only needed suitable staff with an extremely clean slate," explains Hoffmann, but also a suitable location that complies with all the guidelines of the Federal Opium Agency of the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices. Because while the pharmaceutical sector has been harmonized across the EU, very specific regulations apply to narcotics in Germany. "And every federal state also has its own monitoring authority."
“We have always seen ourselves as a pharmaceutical company,” says Hoffmann. He speaks of luck in the search for a suitable property for production, which they found in Leipheim. "The most modern bunker in Germany", enthuses Hoffmann and deliberately wants to arouse curiosity because the story itself fascinates him. The NATO facility on the airfield was built in 1989. Just finished, it was closed again when the wall fell.
The production facility in Leipheim is a former bunker.
© Bavaria Weed
On the conversion plans in the conference room, he points to the wall, which is just as thick as the width of a truck drawn next to it. It is a high-security wing and therefore just the thing for the production of medical cannabis. There is also a high-security room on Gewerbestrasse. "The safest room in all of Herrsching," claims Hoffmann - with a magnetic field, motion detector and temperature monitoring. "If something happens at one of the two locations, we can temporarily store at the other," he says.
Cannabis flowers are currently being imported from Canada and Portugal. Following a tender in 2019, three companies are now allowed to grow cannabis in Germany for the first time. The first harvest is expected in 2022. The Herrsching-based company wants to have eight cannabis varieties that are always available in stock, packed in cans. Each variety for specific indications. Only pharmacies are supplied.
Stefan Langer from Herrsching is one of the founders of Bavaria Weed
© Bavaria Weed
So-called terpenoids, which dominate in the mother plant, are responsible for the effect. Patients can choose the dosage form - they either smoke the flowers with or without tobacco as a cigarette, breathe them in via a vaporizer or drink them as tea. The latter, however, only at the exact temperature of 130 degrees. "Otherwise the active ingredients will not develop," explains Langer. He himself puts the flowers in the oven at 130 degrees and makes cannabis butter, for example. Alternatively, there are extracts that “Bavaria Weed” will only be available from next year and will also produce them in the future.
The declared aim is to bring “Bavaria Weed” into the European market as a leader. So far, the three bosses and their 25 employees - seven of them in Herrsching - have worked “under the radar”, says Langer. “We didn't want to start until everything is ready.” That time has now come. The aim is also to ensure patient care. Because manufacturing in Germany extends the shelf life of the drug, which remains a natural product. It can usually be used for six months. Production will start in September. "The first products will be in stock next week," says Hoffmann happily.