The President and CEO of a new plant-based medical product operation in Saskatoon says after CanniMed was sold, he knew there was still untapped potential and that’s how Zyus Life Sciences Inc. was formed. Zyus won’t be a grower. It will buy from producers already in the market, because Brent Zettl feels there will be a glut in the market in the next few years.
The company will instead extrude the compounds in cannabis, prepare the medical marijuana and other plants, distribute them globally and the goal is to also conduct research. Brent Zettl says they are talking to a number of countries that are looking for access to a pharmaceutical grade product.
At CanniMed, there were 168 conditions for which physicians were prescribing medical marijuana.
Zettl would like to expand the potential for plant-based solutions, researching and then promoting to health care professionals where it can be used to manage disease and improve patient quality of life.
He says there are already 5 ideas in the works for research, with 2 almost ready to be announced.
Main headquarters and the extraction facility are in Saskatoon at Innovation Place.
There is also a satellite office in Toronto and Zettl expects there will be more in the future. Zettl hopes they will have a pilot scale version of the facility and its equipment ready by the end of March, with products available by June of this year and then working at full capacity next year.