Canadian marijuana stock Aphria Inc. (TSX:APH) hopes to make ASG Pharma the processing, manufacturing and distribution hub for all of Europe
SmallCapPower | June 26, 2018: Aphria Inc. (TSX:APH), a Canadian marijuana stock, Thursday announced that its Malta-based subsidiary ASG Pharma, an EU GMP-certified lab, received the first import license for medical cannabis issued by the Malta Medicines Authority (MMA), allowing ASG to import medical cannabis for analytical testing and research. Aphria has in recent months announced several such international expansion initiatives in South America (Argentina, Colombia), Europe (Germany and Italy) and Australia. With the receipt of a license for ASG along with ongoing upgrades of its processing capabilities, Aphria hopes to make ASG the processing, manufacturing and distribution hub for all of Europe.
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Following the announcement, shares of Aphria rose 5.4% Thursday to close at $13.11 on the TSX.
Antonio Costanzo, Head of International Development at Aphria, commented, “Malta’s legislative and regulatory standards are extremely rigorous, and we are pleased and proud that the MMA has awarded this import license to ASG. ASG adheres to the highest international standards and we look forward to upholding this high bar as a leading European hub for medical cannabis.“
Similar to other large cannabis producers, Aphria continues to focus on international opportunities as well as the domestic recreational opportunity starting in October 2018. To cater to these opportunities, Aphria announced in Q3 FY2018 that it will de-emphasize its short-term wholesale opportunities with other LPs to build inventory. At the same time, Aphria closed its Nuuvera acquisition in Q3 FY2018 and renamed it Aphria International Inc., which will focus on existing and future opportunities in regulated international cannabis markets including Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Malta, Australia and Lesotho.
Aphria is one of Canada’s lowest-cost producers of cannabis, with all-in costs of $1.56 a gram in Q3 2018. The Company’s production capacity increased to 30,000 kgs (annualized) in March 2018 with ongoing capacity upgrades expected to drive the annualized capacity to over 200,000 kgs by November 2018. Aphria currently trades at a market cap of $2.9 billion, or 95.2x its TTM sales of $30.6 million.
Disclosure: Neither the author nor his family own shares in the company mentioned above.
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