STENOCARE announced on December 2nd that the company’s premium product, the Astrum oil, has been approved for sales on the Norwegian market. The product is expected to have several benefits compared to the medical cannabis oil available today, including a higher, more uniform, and faster uptake in the blood. The product, Astrum 10-10 oil Stenocare, with 10 mg/ml THC and 10 mg/ml CBD, is expected to be available for patients in Norway within the next 30 days.
The Benefits of the Astrum Oil
Today, doctors encounter challenges when prescribing medical cannabis to patients due to the body’s metabolism, which significantly reduces the uptake of cannabinoids to approximately 15%. This results in only a variable and often minimal portion of the cannabinoids being actively delivered to the body with therapeutic effect, meaning an inconsistent uptake of the active ingredients into the blood. Additionally, the absorption by the body varies from person to person and depending on whether the medication is taken before or after food consumption. This variability leads to unpredictable effects and complicates the doctors’ ability to prescribe the correct dosage.
STENOCARE’s new Astrum oil addresses all of these problems as it is based on a new innovative oil technology. In H2-22, STENOCARE released a study in dogs, showing that the Astrum oil improves the uptake in the blood with a factor of 2.6 compared to a reference MCT-oil product in the market. Moreover, the Astrum oil delivers a uniform uptake in the blood across individuals and regardless of food consumption. Lastly, the Astrum oil improves the time from dosing to full effect from 2-4 hours to just 1 hour, an important step to help patients manage their medical problems.
Analyst Group’s View of the Approval
With the launch of the Astrum oil, which has previously been approved in Australia and Germany, we see STENOCARE as a first mover in next generation medical cannabis oil products. STENOCARE are dependent on doctors prescribing the company’s products and considering the advantages of the Astrum Oil, we expect doctors to appreciate the new product. The Astrum oil is expected to be a more predictable medical cannabis product, helping doctors to prescribe the correct dosage.
As we see the Astrum oil as the most important value driver, we view positively on the approval since it further proves the need. Moreover, the launch on the Norwegian market increases the availability of the product for patients and facilitate for doctors. However, the Norwegian market is significantly smaller than the German and Australian markets, both in terms of number of addressable patients due to lower population and since it is a highly regulated market, where it remains difficult to obtain access to medical cannabis, with many patients that are thought to turn to the black market instead.
Furthermore, STENOCARE has historically encountered challenges with the highly regulated Norwegian market. In Q4-22, STENOCARE made the first shipment of full spectrum medical cannabis oil products to the company’s Norwegian partner, Apotek 1, for sales in the Norwegian market. However, the management of the pain centers (hospitals) unexpectedly decided to hold back the budget for treatment with all cannabis-based products, which hampered sales and consequently led to product expiration. As a result, products worth of DKK 2.1m were returned to STENOCARE. However, we expect that STENOCARE has implemented new procedures to secure the largest possible assurance of sales to patients prior to delivery to all new markets in the future. The updated procedures are expected to reduce the risk of similar large volume expirations going forward.
Nevertheless, the approval once again demonstrates STENOCARE’s ability to secure product approvals in highly regulated markets. The company has thus reaffirmed its capacity to obtain approvals across all types of markets, which we regard as a strength for future expansion into additional markets with Astrum oil.
In summary, Analyst Group views positively on STENOCARE’s approval of the Astrum oil in the Norwegian market even though the market is expected to have a significantly smaller financial impact than the approval on the German and Australian, due to the higher regulated market as well as the smaller population, hence the number of addressable patients. Nevertheless, it demonstrates the ability to secure product approvals in highly regulated markets, which we view as advantageous for the continued expansion of Astrum oil and is expected to make the product available for more patients, which we see as the most important growth driver for STENOCARE going forward.
