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Jun 3, 2019 | Blogs, Food / Beverage | 0 comments
Welcome to the second in a series of blogs from the cannabis team at SCIEX, designed to bring you up to speed and put you in the lead of the recently legalized cannabis market in Canada.
In the first blog, we introduced the Cannabis Act and what it means for the industry. Here we explore product safety and the related analytical testing requirements by answering your common questions.
Why Is Safety up There as a Top Priority?‘Protecting public health and safety by allowing adults access to legal cannabis’ is one of three top priorities of the Act. Regulation aims to ensure that cannabis is safe by eliminating potentially dangerous cultivation and processing practices. Strict rules and standards for producers cover, amongst other things, the types of cannabis products allowed for sale, packaging and labeling requirements, prohibiting the use of certain ingredients and good production practices.
How Will These Safety and Quality Standards Be Monitored?The short answer is through testing. There are strict rules throughout the supply chain from cultivation to sale, and rigorous testing has been federally mandated by Health Canada before cannabis products are made available to the public. In other words, legal cannabis products must meet the grade.
What Tests Need to Be Done and Why?Relative to other industries, safety and regulatory standards for cannabis testing are in their infancy. In Canada, there are already rules for testing in place for medical marijuana, but these are expected to become more comprehensive and stringent.
Laboratories certified for analytical testing must conduct all tests using validated methods on every lot or batch of cannabis to ensure requirements are met. Testing depends on the cannabis product class, but will typically include potency, purity, and safety.
Different provinces and territories will set acceptable limits through localized cannabis regulation.
How Can Testing Help Improve Supply?As cannabis sales shift to licensed outlets and more producers receive their federal stamp of approval, the demand for testing services is expected to rocket. Commercial cannabis testing is very competitive, and legalization will put pressure on the scientific community – who need the right instruments and methods to stay ahead of the curve and ahead of demand.
Using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), SCIEX has pioneered standardized testing methods to analyze potency, terpene, pesticides, and contaminants to Health Canada regulations.
To find out how LC-MS/MS helps analytical testing labs, regulatory laboratories, and licensed producers to clear the bottlenecks and supply safe, legal cannabis products to the Canadian market, check out the next blog in our series.
It is no secret that (bio)pharmaceutical research and development is complex, both scientific and regulatory processes. Here is an overview of just some of the ways SCIEX is working to support these challenges.
In a recent webinar, available on demand, scientists Luiza Chrojan and Ryan Hylands from Pharmaron, provided insights into the deployment of capillary gel electrophoresis (CGE) within cell and gene therapy. Luiza and Ryan shared purity data on plasmids used for adeno-associated virus (AAV) manufacturing and data on AAV genome integrity, viral protein (VP) purity and VP ratios using the BioPhase 8800 system.
Last year, Technology Networks hosted two webinars that featured groundbreaking research utilizing SWATH DIA (data-independent acquisition) for exposomics and metabolomics. Researchers Dr. Vinicius Verri Hernandes from the University of Vienna and Dr. Cristina Balcells from Imperial College London (ICL) demonstrated how a DIA approach can be successfully implemented in small molecule analysis using the ZenoTOF 7600 system. Their innovative approaches highlight the potential of SWATH DIA to enhance the detection and analysis of chemical exposures and metabolites, paving the way for new insights into environmental health and disease mechanisms.
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