Reimag­in­ing med­i­cine? No­var­tis wraps phar­ma’s first big glob­al pot deal

In a wa­ter­shed mo­ment for med­ical cannabis ad­vo­cates in the Unit­ed States, Swiss gi­ant No­var­tis’ $NVS San­doz AG unit has tied up with Cana­di­an med­ical cannabis pro­duc­er Tilray, mark­ing the first big en­dorse­ment of the con­tro­ver­sial plant by a large, multi­na­tion­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny.

The deal ex­em­pli­fies chang­ing at­ti­tudes in the US, where more Amer­i­cans live in states that have le­gal­ized the sale of med­ical and/or recre­ation­al cannabis than in an­ti-cannabis ju­ris­dic­tions. Tilray, which sup­plies cannabis flower and ex­tract prod­ucts to pa­tients, physi­cians, health­care fa­cil­i­ties and re­searchers in 12 coun­tries, has an ex­ist­ing al­liance with San­doz Cana­da.

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