Iberfar Indústria Farmacêutica S.A ("Iberfar"), a Portuguese Pharmaceutical Group operating a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility near Lisbon, and Herbolea Biotech SpA ("Herbolea"), an Italian biotech company that licenses proprietary technologies for solvent-free extraction of botanicals, are pleased to announce the signing of a Licensing Agreement granting Iberfar the rights to utilize Herbolea's extraction and purification technologies in Portugal.
As part of the agreement, Herbolea commits to deliver Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) compliant equipment to Iberfar, with the capability to process over 400.000 Kg of fresh biomass per year.
By signing this agreement, the parties aim to jointly develop the largest solventless production center in Europe, leveraging the most efficient and competitive extraction technologies, biomass of the highest quality (freshly processed, never dried or frozen), and a facility already authorized for production of a range of CBD and THC products (including under a narcotics license).
In this new partnership Herbolea will supply three core technologies:
Bio-Herbolysis™ - a patented and environmentally friendly technology that can extract the cannabis plants' full phyto-complex into a lipid base starting from wet material. This novel process can handle fresh plant material directly, with no need to dry; saving cost, time and space. High temperatures are not utilised during the process, and thus, terpenes are fully retained.
Hydrocan™ is Herbolea's solventless and environmentally friendly technology to selectively concentrate cannabinoids to over 90% potency while simultaneously remediating THC without crossing the legal 0.2% threshold at any step of the process.
Distillac™ purification protocol allows to distil volatile compounds (cannabinoid acids, terpenes) out of the Bio-Herbolysis lipid extract at extremely high efficiency (98%). Contrary to popular belief, the team at Herbolea has found that by means of specific processing conditions, it is possible to concentrate cannabinoid acids out of the lipid extract without incurring decarboxylation, therefore preserving the original plant fingerprint unaltered.
"This agreement is an important milestone for Herbolea. We are proud and delighted that a leading European pharmaceutical company with more than a hundred years of history has chosen our platform for cannabis extraction," said Marco Merciai, CEO at Herbolea Biotech. "This is yet another sign that the world is moving in the direction of sustainable manufacturing. By signing this agreement Herbolea confirms its leadership in the European cannabis extraction landscape."
ABOUT HERBOLEA BIOTECH SpA
Herbolea is a biotech company envisioning the use of innovative, green technologies to obtain safe, high-quality and low-cost natural products. Herbolea's patented Bio-Refining Platform generates unique products from highly therapeutic potential botanicals in a safe, environmentally friendly, and cost-competitive way.
The company has signed licensing agreements with pharma companies in Canada, Colombia, Germany, Italy, Thailand, U.S. and Portugal.
Contact info@herbolea.com to learn more.
