Click here for Part I, Part II, Part III & Part V

Forging a new era for plant-based medical treatments

Dean Petkanas is the CEO of Kannalife Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company that researches and develops medical and therapeutic applications of cannabinoids—chemical compounds derived from the cannabis plant. Founded in 2010, Kannalife Sciences focuses its efforts on creating treatments for brain diseases, disorders, and conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, stroke, Arterial Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson’s disease, and more. The company has the distinction of holding an exclusive license with National Institutes of Health – Office of Technology Transfer (“NIH-OTT”) for the Commercialization of U.S. Patent #6630507, “Cannabinoids as Antioxidants and Neuroprotectants.” Kannalife has earned recognition as medical innovator for its research on the use of cannabinoids as a neural protector to treat Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). Numerous publications, including Sports Illustrated, have featured the company and identified its research as a possible solution for professional football players and other athletes who regularly suffer repeat brain injury.

Q. Can you describe your studies of cannabidiol in more depth? How far along is your research? Does Kannalife conduct research on other kinds of cannabinoids?

DEAN PETKANAS: We always focused on cannabidiol. We never focused on any of the other cannabinoids that are out there—and some may have some real interesting pharmaceutical value—but we really zeroed in on CBD primarily, and the use of that in a neurodegenerative, neuroprotective manner. We had to focus on the areas where we felt they would be best utilized, and that’s where we began our research and continue to do so.

We’re probably within a year of doing a clinical protocol and design for study. We would like to open up that study in Europe. We think Europe is a good market in which to open up that study for the use of CBD as a preventative. We think of CBD, a super Omega-3, as a fish oil, which has largely been used for aches and pains, cartilage repair—some even take fish oil for healthy brain function—and when you look at the compound structures in terms of Omega-3 complexes you see that that CBD might have a strong position in a marketplace, maybe more so than some of the other substrates, like fish oil, out there.

We set up a set of rules from day one. We had other potential business ops that were designed underneath the Kannalife umbrella but, from the pharmaceutical side we were stridently focused on CBD, focused on the AG model, focused on orphan designation and neuroprotection. Our preclinical work in that area confirmed where we should continue going because, many times, companies going preclinical would target drug candidates, and they don’t prove out, and you just say, “Okay, we gave it a shot and it just didn’t show up.” That’s not the case for us. From our original point of concept, when we conceived as a company and the rules of what we wanted to do were set in place, we have accomplished those objectives and we continue to move towards that pathway.

At first, we looked at cannabidiol as a lead target drug candidate for the hepatic encephalopathy model and for the CTE model, but we knew from early preclinical research that there were limitations to cannabidiol in terms of bioavailability and permeability. It’s not an aqueous compound; it’s really oily, greasy compound, and so there are limitations in terms of quantity and dose control, as well as residency and half life. I looked at the possibility that there are other plant sources out there inclusive of the design of synthetic model, which we did with 019 and other, similar, cannabidiol-derived compounds—that there are some other plant sources that were related to cannabis where there might be a potential for pharmaceutical ingredient within those plants that would be a high neuroprotective like CBD. We found some very interesting properties in hops. We’ve pretty much done as much research as we could do on hops and we think that we’ve gotten to a point where we are close to filing some patent work on that.

We wanted to have a bracket around CBD so that we have some options to work with in terms of the dynamic of neurodegenerative-related diseases and treatment thereof—that CBD has some competitive field that we created within the spectrum of cannabinoid therapeutics and not waiting for outsiders and competitors to do that. We tried to be very forward thinking, dynamic, and lateral in our approach to neuroprotection.

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