Medicinal cannabis group to invest €9.5M in Coimbra production facility
The 60,000 square meter factory has an investment of €6.5 million and should be completed in November this year. A further €3 million is also planned by the end of 2024.
Master Med Cannabis, a company dedicated to the production of medical cannabis, will invest €9.5 million and employ about 55 people by the end of 2024 in Penela, in the district of Coimbra.
The company, founded in April 2019, is building a manufacturing unit dedicated only to the “cultivation” of cannabis for medicinal purposes, in order to “help people who have serious illnesses,” CEO Miguel Nobrega Gouveia told Lusa news agency on Thursday.
Located in Infesto, in Penela, the 60,000 square meter factory has an investment of €6.5 million and should be completed in November this year.
A further €3 million is also planned by the end of 2024, earmarked for the purchase of land, to grow cannabis without natural light, as well as collaboration with the strategic sectors business innovation habitat (HIESE), Penela’s incubator focused on rural innovation, and the University of Coimbra (UC).
“Initially it is planned to [employ] 24 to 28, and by the end of 2024 it is planned to employ 55 people,” stressed Miguel Nobrega Gouveia.
Between the end of September and the middle of October, the company plans to employ another five or six people, part-time, in order to “help with the harvest”.
The climate, the location and also the support of Penela Town Hall, namely in the promptness of the necessary paperwork, were the factors that determined the choice of this location for the factory.
Miguel Nobrega Gouveia also noted that another of the ideas is to create a clinic, in Penela, by the end of 2023, to inform citizens about the benefits of the plant, and which will sell cannabis-based products without a medical prescription.
This clinic, budgeted at around €350.000, will include a doctor, a nurse and a receptionist.
This facility will serve as a “health house”, where the doctor can prescribe the medicine, so that, later, the patient can buy it in a pharmacy.
The executive director of Master Med Cannabis also intends to create an association with the companies that have a licence to cultivate cannabis in Portugal – currently, according to Miguel Nobrega Gouveia, there are 18 of them.
The idea is “to give the main voice of cannabis cultivation” to communicate with the government and INFARMED – the National Authority for Medicines and Health Products, for example.
Another of the objectives is to be able to share experiences and knowledge about the plant with members of the association.
