Australia's medicinal cannabis product mix is continuing to shift, with vape carts and pastilles gaining momentum while CBD and THC oils have hit a saturation point, according to data from honahlee.
Delegates at the ACannabis conference heard that the number of vape carts available on the market doubled in the second half of 2022 and then doubled again in the first half of 2023.
Even so, flower remains the category leading all others, honahlee co-founder Tom Brown said.
"Flower is the category that has skyrocketed and has grown five-fold since 2020," he said. "Oils had their largest growth in H2 2022 but have flattened.
"In terms of vape carts and other more accessible dose forms, they are on the rise with vape carts doubling in the second half of 2022 and doubling again in the first half of 2023.
"Pastilles, or gummies, are the new big thing and this isn't really surprising as patients have been asking for them for quite some time now."
Brown said that prior to this year, only two finished pastille products existed on the market.
Since January, however, four additional products have been listed on honahlee's Catalyst platform.
"We believe that's going to continue to increase," he said.
Brown also pointed to growing availability of concentrates, dabs and topicals, with patches and inhalers now appearing in the market as well.
"Patients are looking for more accessible product formats and those are the formats that you think of in a traditional pharmaceutical market," he said. "Patients are requesting them specifically to replace things like oils which can be messy and difficult to handle when they're on the move."
Brown told the conference that the growth of newer formats was unlikely to erode flower's position, given its long-standing role in medicinal and general cannabis use and the speed with which it takes effect.
"There is also a med-rec market that is very dominant," he said.
Shifting to the question of where products originate, Brown said there had been widespread concern ahead of the TGO93 reforms in July last year that the changes would push up costs for suppliers and, by extension, patients.
"What we can see is that we have not realised any of these changes," he said.
"First is the sheer growth of the flower category… and we don't see this slowing down. More companies are importing flower to be packaged locally. This is currently at about 60% of all flower products and, as a result, we hope to see Australian manufacturers increase capacity and efficiency which will reduce the price to suppliers. That will have a knock-on effect for patients."
On the oils front, Brown said total product numbers peaked in January 2023, with CBD and THC oils now at saturation point.
"Only a very few differentiate from each other in any way and suppliers and healthcare professionals talk about oils as generics," he said. "We hear it all the time. We believe we've reached a saturation point for these types of just plain-old CBD and THC oils.
"With relation to the July 2023 changes, it would have been reasonable to expect the number of products, particularly from countries like the US, to have decreased.
"However, at January 1 2024, we had 19 oil products on the market from the US and many of those batches are probably not compliant with the current TGO regulations, which is not surprising because [they] were released prior to the changes."
Brown said some suppliers have confirmed that several of these products will stay on the market because their manufacturing sites meet the relevant compliance requirements.
"There was a recent announcement that a company in Colorado just received their TGA licence, which means we'll likely continue to see more oils coming from the US."
Regarding vape carts, Brown said manufacturing and packaging is taking place in the same country as the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API).
"When these products first hit the market, they were all from Canada. In the first half of 2023, we saw the first liquid vape carts come from South Africa and then in the second half of 2023, we saw our first vape carts from the US and Australia.
"This is another category that we see continuing to grow very rapidly and becoming slightly more diverse."
