Las Vegas-based GB Sciences closed the sale of its last remaining cannabis cultivation facility. The $8 million sale proceeds include $3.8 million in immediate debt and liabilities reduction, $1.2 million in cash, and a $3 million interest-bearing note payable to GB Sciences by the buyer over a three-year term, according to MJBizDaily.

Per a Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board mandate, GB transferred its marijuana production and extraction licenses to AJE Management.

Despite the sale, GB Sciences will remain in medical cannabis but will shift its focus to pursue other interests in the biopharmaceutical industry. One pharmaceutical company that recently entered the cannabis industry is Pfizer. 

GB Sciences’ therapeutic mixtures feature “plant-inspired” ingredients. Identical to the original plant compounds, these synthetic homologues – biosynthetic cannabinoids, essentially – are manufactured under current Good Manufacturing Practices. 

“We can now concentrate all our energies on advancing our plant-inspired, biopharmaceutical research and development programs into human clinical trials,” President and chief science officer at GB Sciences, Andrea Small-Howard, said in a press release.

GB Sciences’ intellectual property portfolio includes three international and five U.S. patents issued to protect therapeutic mixtures for chronic pain, heart disease, and hyper inflammation. The company has six preclinical-stage programs in its drug development pipeline. GB’s Parkinson’s disease therapeutic program is being prepared for a first-in-human clinical trial. 

GB Sciences is also developing therapeutics for anxiety, chronic pain, COVID-related cytokine release syndrome, depression, heart failure, and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. Other groups, like researchers from Ole Miss, are studying how cannabis can help with HIV-related chronic pain. 

GB Sciences’ development and productive research network include distinguished universities, hospitals, contract research organizations, and contract manufacturing organizations.

The company also has 43 international and 12 U.S. patent-pending applications. These applications provide patent protection for PhAROS, its proprietary drug discovery engine, and its novel, plant-inspired combination drugs to treat more than 65 severe medical conditions.

Partnerships with industry-leading contract research firms and manufacturers have supplied active pharmaceutical ingredients, novel drug delivery systems, and the clinical prototypes of GB Sciences’ therapies for planned first-in-human clinical trials.

The decision to move away from plant-touching marijuana operations makes GB a “pure-play biopharmaceutical research and development company,” according to John Poss, the company’s chairman and CEO. 

The move also allows GB Sciences to attract institutional investors and strategic partners in the biopharmaceutical drug-development sector by listing its stock on a senior exchange.

“We are positioned to generate substantial value from our unique pipeline of patent-protected formulations for the prescription drug market that targets a range of serious medical problems,” Poss said.

GB Sciences’ established its substantial biopharmaceutical research and development pipeline through collaborations with scientists at several well-respected institutions – Chaminade University, the University of Hawaii, the National Research Council of Canada, Michigan State University, the University of Seville, the University of Cadiz in Spain, and the University of Athens in Greece.