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Two Cannabis Vertical Powerhouses Partner to Optimize Patient Experience

Nov. 20, 2024 by SOMAÍ Pharmaceuticals

When two great companies pair to create the best patient experience possible, the global CBPM industry must take notes. Ultimately, companies must center the patient experience and treat people with better products and services. No other model for medicine and patient care should exist other than one in which the patient is truly first and given an educated choice of the most advanced cannabis products by doctors who care about independence.

In pursuit of this goal, Releaf Clinic and SOMAÍ Pharmaceuticals have joined forces to bring their world-class offerings to UK patients. Together, the companies boast the largest portfolio of products and tout doctors’ true independence in prescribing their patients the best products in the market without undue influence.

How Does Brand Independence Impact Patient Experience?

The United Kingdom is riddled with conflicts of interest for patients: cultivation and manufacturers that own clinics and magically prescribe more of their product than other, better products on the market; clinics that have an in-house brand, use the best-priced white label manufacturers to increase profits, and then sell a vast majority of that brand to patients.

Meanwhile, the few existing white-label manufacturers are selling the same products to hundreds of other groups with relabeling, begging the question of how one clinic can claim theirs is best for patients receiving the same product with many different names. The independence of doctors and patients’ choices is very critical. Although these clinics with evident conflicts of interest keep repeating to everyone that they remain independent, the optics are clear. It’s just not a credible statement, no matter how many times they have to repeat the same tired phrases claiming independence.

SOMAÍ Pharmaceutical’s Story

SOMAÍ Pharmaceuticals is one of a few vertically integrated multi-country operators in the entire global cannabis medical market. SOMAÍ remains independent of clinic ownership and believes all patients in England and every country should have access to their advanced portfolio at a fair price.

SOMAÍ Pharmaceuticals dedicated itself to the largest and most comprehensive extract portfolio with over 100+ SKUs with multiple formulations in every modern delivery method and with advancements and performance to reach almost every indication and demographic around the globe. SOMAÍ Pharmaceuticals is not just about range; their EU-GMP pharmaceutical quality standards are years beyond current products, and they proudly display and educate their technology and know-how to the doctors and patients so people can see the difference.

SOMAÍ Pharmaceuticals uses best practices and the most advanced equipment available in a one-of-a-kind facility with standards so high that they will not even let inventories get low in any country or clinic. SOMAÍ opens its physical and digital doors to tours, online seminars and videos so people can experience the difference their enterprising technology makes.

To increase their offering, SOMAÍ Pharmaceuticals bought an EU-GMP indoor flower cultivation facility that boasts hugely desired brand names and non-irradiated flower selection to supply the highest quality flower to medical patients globally. With their global presence, their pharmaceutical standards reach the level of market authorization medicines that no others have the certification and quality standards for — earning them the heavy-weight title of real pharmaceutical quality and the number-one portfolio of our generation.

The Releaf Clinic Story

CEO Tim Kirby formed a senior leadership team with a proven track record in disrupting opaque, complex, highly regulated markets. Releaf went to market in February to address the need of millions of U.K. adults wholly under-served by incumbent providers. Since regulation changed in the U.K. in 2018, the market has stagnated and remained flat, with approximately 60,000 U.K. adults estimated to have a cannabis-based product for medicinal use (CBPM) prescription by the end of this year. Despite CBPMs being available for some time, in some territories, a staggeringly low number of adults have a prescription, despite the total addressable market in the U.K. being vast.

“There are a number of factors at play in the U.K. that have led to the market stagnation,” said Releaf CEO Tim Kirby. “Broken supply chains, a lack of quality and consistent medication being available. [This] means patient Treatment Plans have been constantly interrupted, incumbent providers’ leadership teams have no track record of going to market at scale, the sector has very poor tech capability that is not vertically integrated, and it  means that scale is a challenge and patient experience is poor.”

Releaf’s commitment to differentiation is clear after spending 2 million pounds and 18 months building a world-class health tech platform. Living up to its tagline, ‘We didn’t come to take part, we came to take over,’ Releaf is now the fastest-growing cannabis clinic in the U.K. Patients are flocking to the platform, and TrustPilot reviews highlight significant improvements in quality of life and health outcomes.

Scaling Up with Smarter Patient Choices

Being educated and informed has never been simpler for prospective patients as large language models and all manner of other digital assets are available to give belief and trust to the cannabis naïve as to whether their condition has shown to gain quality of life improvement when treated with CBPMs. With Releaf’s seamless user experience, a huge addressable market, and a partnership with SOMAÍ to strategically deliver consistent, quality medication, it would seem the long-awaited scale-up that has always been possible in the U.K. is now beginning.

Patients worldwide are being educated about a wider range of high-quality CBPMs currently available on the market and are learning to differentiate between what is claimed and what is fact. Thanks to a vast range of knowledge available online, patients can make more informed choices and see behind the curtain. Globally, regulators are starting to wake up to inherent conflicts and as the industry grows, they will be less accepting of bad practices. As Releaf and SOMAÍ Pharmaceuticals team up, the result is a clear win for patients and a model worth following in the footsteps of.