BLS Wholesalers, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ASX-listed Bioxyne, has rolled out its CanxChange trading platform in Australia, recording more than A$10 million in uploaded leads within its opening week.
The invite-only B2B platform is designed to allow pharmacies, licensed manufacturers and cultivators to conduct transactions in a secure, user-friendly environment.
BLS CEO Sam Watson described CanxChange as "a sophisticated technology platform marketplace solution to help licensed businesses navigate the highly regulated environment safely, with greater transparency and ease."
He added: "We have launched CanxChange to target the $500m-plus medicine specials market in Australia, including medicinal cannabis.
“CanxChange aims to solve market inefficiencies, and to create more transparency in pricing and supply in the B2B prescription cannabis industry, which is moving rapidly towards $1 billion per year.”
Since going live, the platform has attracted more than $10 million in sale interests from users in its first week alone.
Watson said: "There are other platforms in the market which cater to pharmacy and pharmacy to patients, but nothing that connects cultivators to manufacturers, suppliers to pharmacy.
“There is nothing exclusively B2B, and nothing with international access.
“That’s what’s on offer here – a global platform connecting Australian operators with the international cannabis community, and vice versa.”
Watson said the level of interest generated with minimal marketing effort spoke to the platform's appeal.
"We haven’t even started to market [it] and there is already a huge uptick in interest, just through our modest network," Watson said.
"We really think CanxChange Australia could see a significant portion of the total market transacting on it each year and that’s a big number.
"There is no added margin or hidden cost in using it, just a small percentage fee for service shared between purchaser and seller to cover the platform technology and administration costs."
Bioxyne completed the acquisition of BLS in May last year, with Watson and COO Jason Hine joining the board at that time.
BLS holds Australian licences to import, export, wholesale and manufacture Schedule 3, 4 and 8 medicines, including medicinal cannabis and ketamine, and has operations across Australia, the UK, Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia and the US.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) carried out an inspection of its Brisbane manufacturing facility in November, with the company anticipating Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) certification within the coming months.
Watson said that once certification is granted, the company will be positioned to substantially expand its existing production output and bulk manufacture its trademarked Dr Watson medicines and therapeutic goods for third-party clients, both for local supply and export.
"Certification will allow us to significantly scale up manufacturing for the Australian market as well as for export to foreign markets such as Germany, the Czech Republic and the UK where we have a strong foothold and sales team," he said.
"We hope to be able to update the market on our GMP status before the end of February."
