Cannabinoid Formulation for Consumer Beverages

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This five-year, 2.1-million-dollar project is a continuation of an existing collaboration between Peak Processing Solutions and the Trant research lab at the University of Windsor jointly supported by NSERC and MITACS. Peak Processing Solutions is a cannabis processor that seeks to generate new lines of consumer products, upvaluing raw material into higher value products for both the domestic and international market. The Trant research lab is a biomedical research lab focusing on drug design and drug delivery.Cannabis is a growth industry in Canada, and the quality of Canadian cannabis is highly regarded internationally meaning Canada has rapidly attained a role as the leading global producer of medicinal cannabis. However, as more countries legalize cannabis, to maintain this economic advantage, Canada must become a leader in innovation as we cannot compete agriculturally with countries with climates better suited to cultivating cannabis; we need to lead in developing higher value products. One of the major challenges in cannabis product development is that cannabinoids are not soluble in water. This means that to put them into various products, they must be formulated, but this requires stable formulations that also maintain their potency over time. However, every different application requires a different formulation as they are very sensitive to the nature of the environment. A formulation that works for a cola doesn't work for juice, or water, or a beer. This means that a library of formulations is needed. Besides delivering solutions for cannabis-containing products, this project will also generate sufficient data to improve our understanding of various formulation forms and how their physical chemistry is affected by the parameters involved in their generation. This project will support more than 20 different trainees, at the undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral level over the five years of the grant, and continue to attract some of the best scientists around the world to Canada.