History
The predecessor to CanniMed, Prairie Plant Systems, was established in 1988. PPS began its business by providing fruit trees to orchards. [1] Fruit products include Saskatoon berries, haskap (blue honeysuckle) and dwarf sour cherries. In 1990, it entered a joint venture with Hudson Bay Mining to establish an underground growth chamber in the Trout Lake mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. [2]
In 2000, PPS received a contract from Health Canada to grow medical cannabis. [3] It used its facility in Flin Flon for this purpose. [4] From that time until 2013, PPS was the only company given a Health Canada license to grow cannabis, although as of 2012 only 12% of medical cannabis users used PPS, with most of the rest growing their own cannabis. [5] In 2000 PPS set up a US subsidiary called SubTerra, and in 2003, it acquired the White Pine mine in Michigan, for use in bio-pharmaceutical research. [1] In 2009, PPR lost its lease to the Flin Flon facility when a deposit of zinc was discovered below it, and so the company built its first above-ground cannabis growing facility. [6] [2]
In 2012, PPS through SubTerra announced its intention to grow medical cannabis in its Michigan mine, based on the 2008 legalization of medical cannabis in Michigan. [1] [7] In 2014 SubTerra bought an Upper Michigan power company in order to secure energy supply to its research facilities. [8]
In 2013, Health Canada changed its medical cannabis regulations, banning in-home production and opening up commercial production to additional companies, and that year PPS and its new subsidiary CanniMed Ltd. became first producers to be certified under the regulations. [9] [10] [11]
In June 2015 CanniMed received Health Canada approval for clinical trial of cannabis in adults with osteoarthritis of the knee. [12] [13] In January 2016, CanniMed received Health Canada approval to sell edible cannabis oil. [14] On December 29, 2016, it held an IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange, raising $69 million. [15] The new public company was named CanniMed Therapeutics, and had Cannimed Ltd. and Prairie Plant Systems as subsidiaries. In March 2017, it announced a deal to distribute its products with PharmaChoice, a Canadian co-operative pharmacy chain. [16] In April 2017, it announced a $10 million expansion of its facility in Saskatoon. [15]
In November 2017, Aurora Cannabis started trying to acquire CanniMed, and claimed it had the support of 38% of shareholders. [17] CanniMed management responded by rejecting the offer, and proposing an alternative merger with Newstrike Resources, a recreational cannabis firm, instead. [18] In January, Newstrike shareholders approved the proposed merger, [19] but CanniMed management started to reconsider Aurora's offer. [20] In January 2018, Cannimed called off its proposed acquisition of Newstrik and agreed to be bought by Aurora for $1.1 billion in stock and cash to create a larger company than the industry leader at the time, Canopy Growth Corporation. [21] Aurora had put out an offer to buy CanniMed's stock from its holders for cash and Aurora stock; the offer terminated at the end of March and by that time Aurora owned around 96% of CanniMed stock, and had paid out around 69.3 million of its shares and $134 million in cash. [22] Aurora said at that time that it would compel the remaining shareholders to sell their stock and would formally absorb CanniMed at a later date. [22] In April 2018 the CEO of CanniMed, Brent Zettl, resigned and Andre Jerome was appointed interim CEO. [23] Around the time of acquisition CanniMed's stock price rose dramatically as people anticipated the legalization of cannabis in Canada in the summer of 2018, raising concerns about a bubble. [24]
In June 2020, Aurora cannabis announced the closure of the Saskatoon facility.
