The most recent SAS-B data has been released by the TGA. Another positive outlook for the Medicinal Cannabis industry.
2024 YTD has seen 90,000 approvals, whereas 2023 for the FY saw 130,000 and 2022 was 117,000. More that SAS-B approvals generally require a resubmission after 2 years. But, if we take the past 2 years worth of data, we get a rough estimate of there being ~350k current prescriptions which at current forecast could soar to closer to the 450-500k mark by the end of the year as adoption continues to accelerate. Note that these are individuals, not numbers of prescriptions filled.
If each and every SAS-B approval leads to monthly fills (obviously an upper estimate), we could be looking at up to 6m individual prescriptions filled in a 12m period. We know that prescription prices vary greatly, but at a conservative $140/month estimate (Based on Pennington Institute research)… The Australian market could be seeing revenues in the range of $840m in the coming year. Obviously this would be closer to the upper range based on loose data, but well above what a quick search on Australian Medicinal Cannabis market size is. For reference, most estimates put the Aus market at roughly $500m AUD, so a potential under representation of up to 40%.
The data we know is that in 2022 we saw $234m in total revenues, H1 2023 was $210m. Extrapolate that to the FY and you’re sitting closer to $450m (assuming growth in H2 23. So again, the Australian MC industry looks to be compounding at around 100% growth rates YoY again. With most adoption coming from QLD, there is major growth still to be expected from the other Australian states and Territories. And yet… using data from Penington, local cultivation is only growing at 50%. Which is still phenomenal but sees cheap imports accounting for a significant gap to fill the market share.
The industry is seeing beyond exponential growth and I suspect this will continue to be the case for the short term until all states have similar % of populations accessing the medicine. This may be 2-4 years away.
To extrapolate further, QLD has seen 250k SAS-B notification total, accounting for roughly 250k with a population of 5.25m. So as a % we are looking at 4.75%. Taken across the nation, that’s now 1.23m national approvals. Let’s dive again into the numbers in the same manner as before… $2.1b in annualised revenues from the Australian market. Assuming prescribers stabilise at 4.75% of population. That’s quite massive. But, justified growth and a justified medicinal alternative to current options available.
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