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- Vitura Health (VIT) and PharmAla Biotech have established a 50:50 joint venture called Cortexa, which aims to become a leading supplier of psychedelics in Australia
- Under the deal, the Cortexa JV will have the exclusive rights to purchase MDMA and psilocybin products from PharmAla for supply to the Australian market
- It comes after the Therapeutics Goods Administration announced that as of July, it would allow the prescription of MDMA and psilocybin to treat certain conditions
- Cortexa will pay PharmAla a licence fee of $250,000 per annum for three years and a royalty equal to 5 per cent of its profit, and Virtura says the JV will generate revenue “from the outset”
- VIT shares are up 9.46 per cent and trading at 40.5 cents at 1:31 pm AEST
Vitura Health (VIT) and Canada-based PharmAla Biotech have established a 50:50 joint venture called Cortexa, which aims to become a leading supplier of psychedelics for research and therapeutic use in Australia.
VIT said the joint venture would capitalise on Vitura’s market-leading distribution and industry relationships and PharmAIa’s proven good manufacturing practice (GMP) technologies.
Cortexa will become the exclusive licence holder for PharmAla’s owned and licensed MDMA manufacturing technology and intellectual property assets in Australia to enable onshore MDMA manufacturing.
Further, the Cortexa JV will have the exclusive rights to purchase MDMA and psilocybin products from PharmAla for supply to the Australian market
Cortexa will pay PharmAla a licence fee of $250,000 per annum for three years from the date of the joint venture agreement and a royalty of 5 per cent of its net profit. Vitura said the JV would generate revenue “from the outset”.
“Vitura is proud that one of the world’s leading players in the Psychedelic space has joined forces with us with the objective to establish Cortexa as the leading MDMA and Psilocybin supplier in the Australian market,” VIT CEO Rodney Cocks said.
“We are looking forward to working with the PharmAla team to bring a number of new, GMP-manufactured treatment options to market at a time when major changes have been made to patient access to Psychedelics in Australia.”
PharmAIa expects to become the first company in the world able to supply both MDMA and Psilocybin to meet acceptable standards of GMP to be ready for prescription use in Australia.
Today’s news comes after the Therapeutics Goods Administration (TGA) announced that as of July, it would allow the prescription of MDMA to treat post-traumatic stress disorder and psilocybin to treat treatment-resistant depression.
PharmAla has already completed manufacturing batches of its products, which are
now available to Cortexa for import into Australia.
Batches will be supplied to medical practitioners under the TGA’s Authorised Prescriber scheme from July 1.
VIT shares were up 9.46 per cent and trading at 40.5 cents at 1:31 pm AEST.
