D.C.’s Holistic Industries Inc. is introducing a new health care brand for chronic pain — and arming doctors with information the company contends has been lacking in the medical marijuana space.
The multistate operator is debuting its Cannaceutica brand with an oral cannabis capsule that, the company says, is the industry’s first product backed by clinical research.
Each bottle, which sells for $25, comes with dosing guidelines for physicians — important because “they don’t want to tell their patients to go smoke a joint,” said Kyle Barich, Holistic’s chief marketing officer since November 2019, who’s spearheading the marketing campaign for Cannaceutica.
“What’s missing for them is evidence, dosing and a simple package, so they know it’s the same every time they’re going to get it,” Barich said. “That’s what we’re offering.”
The clinical trial
But getting that evidence and dosing guidance is tough, because cannabis remains federally illegal — and therefore, using federal funding for clinical research isn’t an option.
So Holistic teamed up with the University of California at Irvine, which agreed to run an Institutional Review Board-approved clinical study for the Cannaceutica capsules. Holistic funded the trial, it said, declining to disclose its investment.
The study involved 107 patients over 14 weeks, demonstrating that people can have relief from chronic pain “without getting high, if they dose it properly,” Barich said.
The test wasn’t necessary to be able to sell the product; Holistic has sold capsules for years, under different brands. And it doesn’t require regulatory approval to make it available to people with medical marijuana cards. Rather, the trial allows Holistic to give doctors the knowledge they need to feel comfortable including medical cannabis in their treatment arsenal.
The education campaign
Barich spent years in the health care industry, including working with Pfizer on an ad campaign for erectile dysfunction drug Viagra, which involved “changing the conversation between people and their doctors about something in health care that’s maybe a little stigmatized,” Barich said. Now with cannabis, he said, he’s taking a similar approach.
Holistic’s message, Barich said, is that cannabis for chronic pain “shouldn’t be a pain” — as it aims to give doctors the answers they need to recommend medical marijuana with confidence, as an alternative to, or before prescribing, opioids. And because advertising restrictions are different in the cannabis industry (read: no radio or TV commercials allowed), Holistic’s strategy is “a lot more guerrilla style, with a pharma playbook,” CEO Josh Genderson said.
The company took a play from the pharmaceutical industry, using what are called Medical Science Liaisons — doctors, pharmacists and people with other related advanced degrees — to teach doctors what they need to know about cannabis, so they can answer patients’ questions. Holistic bills it as a competitive advantage, allowing it to bring credibility and transparency to the cannabis space.
“We’re not trying to convince people of anything, we’re just providing education,” Barich said. “It’s more about having a practical application, a simple, well-dosed, consistent product that people can take like they would take an over-the-counter medicine.”
The rollout
The Cannaceutica capsules are now available at three Liberty dispensaries in Maryland, where the business is piloting the new product: at its own locations in Baltimore, Rockville and its newest site in Oxon Hill.
The 12,500-square-foot store, which opened in mid-April near MGM National Harbor, covers more than double the footprint of Holistic’s typical retail stores. And the new shop’s setup reflects that of bigger West Coast dispensaries, Genderson said.
After piloting Cannaceutica at its own Maryland locations, the company plans to expand its availability to nearly 100 dispensaries across the state, Barich said. Then it’ll go market by market, with Massachusetts on deck next.
The growth
Holistic has two licensed cultivation centers in D.C. and currently counts 21 retail stores across 11 states, with four more slated to open this year. But more than 44 states have some sort of cannabis program — and in markets where the company doesn’t yet have a presence, it could license Cannaceutica to other sellers, Genderson said. It’s a way of “getting exposure without going and building out a $40 million facility,” he added. Holistic is eyeing other markets like Florida and Arizona, where chronic pain is more prevalent among more senior populations, he added.
“People are more open-minded than ever before, stigmas are less than ever before, and it’s just having a good practical solution,” Barich said. “My mom? If it looked like weed, she wouldn’t do it. But if it looks and feels and speaks like medicine, then she’s very open to it.”
To that end, Cannaceutica fills a void in the industry, because it’s “not a super psychotropic dose,” Genderson said. “That would be considered a side effect.”
Holistic reached “just under $200 million” in revenue for 2021, Genderson said, now with a target of around $300 million in revenue for 2022. The company is also hiring, he said, shooting to balloon from 950 employees — with 200 currently in Greater Washington — to about 1,500 by year’s end.
