Althea begins online medicinal cannabis sales supported by telemedicine
Althea is on course for the UK launch of its updated Concierge platform “in the coming months”.
Two weeks since securing a new patient referral agreement and approvals for more clinic locations, medicinal cannabis company Althea Group (ASX: AGH) has turned its attentions to making commercial progress online.
In a statement this morning, Althea said it will begin online sales of medicinal cannabis from its Althea Concierge platform, including delivery in what the company described as an “Australian first”.
The pharma company will soon be shipping medicinal cannabis products directly to people’s homes across Australia.
Particularly valuable in the current COVID-19 market climate, patients can attend online consultations with the entire process from registration to delivery being done online.
When used in conjunction with video telemedicine, Althea Concierge allows doctors to prescribe Althea medicinal cannabis products via the platform and patients to pay for their prescription online and taking delivery.
The methodology is particularly useful today because it foregoes the need for patients to make multiple visits to their doctor and the pharmacy. Over time, pharmacy visits are expected to decline which streamlines supply and greatly simplifies obtaining medication that patients may struggle to obtain due to accessibility issues.
Furthermore, Althea Concierge streamlines the prescription process for doctors and allows patients to find prescribers of Althea’s medicinal cannabis in their area.
Althea Concierge delivery
Althea Concierge has been registered with the Therapeutic Goods Administration as a medical device.
The software as a medical device was launched in Australia in September 2018 to provide medical education and clinical evidence for healthcare professionals looking to prescribe medicinal cannabis.
Following the latest tweaks and improvements, Althea plans to roll out the updated version in the UK “in the coming months”.
Over time and after extensive development, Althea unveiled new features to help personal treatment and improve the standard of care. Its new interactive treatment plan feature allows doctors to issue personalised treatment plans directly to their patient’s phone via an app.
The app is able to fully customise patients’ dosage reminders and allows patients to record their medication usage while generating ongoing feedback to their doctor via the secure platform.
“We are very excited about this latest update to the Althea Concierge platform,” said Althea’s chief executive officer Josh Fegan.
“The ability for contactless sales is probably the biggest development yet for medicinal cannabis in Australia. You need to have a lot more than just a quality product in the highly regulated prescription cannabis space and Althea’s ongoing investment in technology, provides us with a premium value proposition that we believe none of our competitors possess,” he said.
As part of operations, Althea Concierge will ensure that patients complete a validated assessment survey appropriate to their medical condition, at the start and end of their treatment plan, to ensure doctors can monitor and assess their patients in extensive detail.
Althea has also confirmed that anonymised patient symptom assessment data will be collated and added to a broader evidence database, to support future Althea medications and provide valuable data about treatment efficacy to doctors.
More than 130 individual responses have already been added to this evidence database since the inception of Althea interactive treatment plans, the company said.