Next Green Wave is turning heads, with the Californian-based cannabis company managing to reel in a licensing agreement with global biotech major Intrexon to use its latest genetic technologies.
Intrexon hopes to rollout its next generation plant propagation platform, known as Botticelli, at Next Green Wave’s 35,000 sq.ft indoor cannabis production facility.
The licensing agreement demonstrates the impressive pulling power of the recently-listed marijuana stock, with Intrexon listed on the NASDAQ holding a market capitalisation of over US$1 billion.
Botticelli will enable rapid propagation of Next Green Wave’s proprietary cannabis cultivars, maintaining genetic purity and product performance.
The technology offers potential for a sustainable, scalable and more economical solution than the cannabis industry’s conventional cloning methods.
Commenting on the application of the advanced technology, Mike Jennings, Next Green Wave chief operations officer and head of research and innovation said:
We believe Intrexon’s next-gen tissue culture approach will enable high volume propagation of cannabis varietals, ensuring product integrity and consistent performance to offer to our customers.
“As the cannabis industry continues to mature, we will continue to bring cutting edge partnerships into our Company to ensure we are pushing the innovation envelope amongst our peers.
“In my many years as a breeder and grower, I have not seen advances with as much potential to be disruptive to plantlet production as the Botticelli technology and am looking forward to realising its potential in collaboration with the talented Intrexon team.”
The collaboration between Next Green Wave and Intrexon will occur over two-stages.
The pair will commence an optimisation process in which Intrexon will calibrate the Botticelli technology to Next Green Wave’s specific cannabis cultivars.
A production phase will follow, in which Next Green Wave may utilise the technology in the production of cannabis plantlets for its downstream products and the sale of plantlets to third party producers in California.
Intrexon will be entitled to royalties on Next Green Wave’s own plantlet usage and the parties will share equally the revenues from third party sales.
