Scotland's first medical cannabis production facility has secured £2 million in private investment to become one of the largest producers in the UK.
Hilltop Leaf founders Hamish Clegg, Neil Ewart and Will Ewart have secured the money from UK investment house Traditum and a number of private investors. The equity injection will allow the company to make its first commercial sales and scale up its infrastructure for the specialist prescription market.
Hilltop Leaf - which holds a manufacturers "specials" licence and wholesaler dealer authorisation from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency - has already completed construction of an 11,000sq m production facility in southern Scotland. The company intends to produce pharmaceutical-grade cannabis-based products for medicinal use in humans (CBPMs) which will ultimately be processed on site.
When fully operational, the founders say the facility will have the potential to supply more than 10 per cent of the UK market, creating dozens of local jobs.
"We are building a business around the three key pillars of health innovation, environmental sustainability, and community impact," said Mr Clegg, the company's chief executive. "Although medicinal cannabis use is growing, the UK relies solely on imports and we understand there is a problem with the reliability of the supply chain.
“We aim to provide an affordable, high-quality solution to treat conditions ranging from chronic pain to severe epilepsy, while easing pressure on the NHS. We plan to rival other countries such as Canada, Germany and Israel with our own reliable supply from the hills of Scotland.”
The company was set up in 2019 by Mr Clegg, a former financier and serial entrepreneur, with father and son Neil and Will Ewart who have a track record in windfarms and agriculture. The company has a research partnership with Nottingham Trent University which specialises in testing and clinical trials.
READ MORE: MS patients to get 'life-changing' Sativex on NHS Scotland
An estimated 1.8 million people in the UK use "black market" cannabis to treat medical conditions, according to the Centre for Medicinal Cannabis. Medicinal cannabis was legalised in 2018 and is now used by more than 20,000 patients in the UK, with uptake expected to grow rapidly.
Tom Hurley, investment director with Traditum, said: “Hilltop Leaf is Traditum’s third healthtech deal in six months and will add further strength to our growing portfolio. We believe cannabis has the potential to offer new and better treatments for some conditions and provide an alternative to opioids for pain relief.
“We have been impressed by the strength of the company’s management team, their fastidious approach to quality and their vision to create a purpose-built facility backed by research and development. Hilltop Leaf has the chance to gain an early mover advantage and become a clear leader in the UK’s emerging medicinal cannabis industry.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel