The Zelira heretics are back! and as usual, there needs to be some research done on this topic. DYOR people!
First of all Matt, what is your source for the prices charged at Cannabis Access? I don't know much about patient recruitment costs, and as medical cannabis trails are not like for like, I would imagine prices could vary wildly.
I did a quick look online to see if I could source some costs and found this table, link below.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/732896/clinical-trial-costs-by-select-cost-component-and-phase/
Clinical trial costs by selected cost component and clinical phase as of 2014 (in U.S. dollars)*
First thing you notice is how expensive clinical trials are - bloody hell!
Patient recruitment costs are listed here per trial. Cost listed for phase 1 trials is $37,050 US. This table is from 2014, so if we update it for inflation & currency, a quick crude conversion in my head gets us a value of about $60,000 AUS. This is an average, so it's impossible to tell what the range of costs would be.
$60k is less than the $99k, but not by so much as to immediately come to the conclusion that there is a scandal.
I'd imagine trials for things like Cancer would be very expensive to recruit, what are cannabis costs? Is it more expensive in Australia too as a smaller population may make it harder to recruit candidates? I don't know - anyone?
I also noticed there was another element to the collaboration with Emerald, which very much looks inline with Zelda's new launch and learn strategy.
https://biotechdispatch.com.au/news/new-collaboration-for-zelda-therapeutics-1
As for Stewart Washer, he has been a mainstay of the medical cannabis community, he founded Auscann, co-founded Zelda and only just left the board. He is a director on the board at Botanix and also started Emerald Clinics. There was a pretty good article about him recently on The GreenFund - worth a read for those investors not aware of Stewart and his influence.
https://thegreenfund.com/exclusive-interview-with-zelda-therapeutics-co-founder-dr-stewart-washer
(20min delay)