Pharmacy contract for medicinal cannabis could be awarded next month

Final stages of procurement to commission pharmacy underway

Government is hoping to award a contract to an on-Island pharmacy – to allow it to dispense prescriptions for medicinal cannabis – by the end of April.

That's according to the health minister who says the final stages of a procurement process to commission a pharmacy are underway.

Lawrie Hooper was asked, via a question for written answer in Tynwald, how and when medicinal cannabis products on private prescription would be dispensed on the Isle of Man. 

Applications for licenses to develop and export the drug opened up last year, after Tynwald voted to legalise the industry in January, however the use of medicinal cannabis on-Island remained illegal. 

Later in the year, however, the then-Health Minister David Ashford said his department was in talks to enable people with prescriptions from UK clinics to collect the product here.

Now his successor says the DHSC has been developing a process to commission the importation and on-Island dispensing of cannabis based medicinal products for patients issued with prescriptions from private clinics in the UK.

This involves establishing a quality-assured and accredited dispensary process on the Island for the first time - the dispensing of the prescriptions will then be undertaken by a pharmacy on the Isle of Man which directly works with the private clinics across.

After a contract is awarded Mr Hooper says a 'mobilisation plan' will be developed to roll out the product 'safely and securely' from the second quarter of the 2022/23 financial year.

Health Minister Lawrie Hooper added: "Currently, there is limited data regarding the number of potential patients on the Island requiring the service, predominately due to the fact that cannabis based medicinal products are not available on the NHS and those acquiring them are personally responsible for paying for their prescriptions from private clinics.

"In order to understand the need and demand on the Island the licence process is planned as part of a pilot to enable the department to monitor activity, usage and trends to determine future requirements."