(MENAFN- ProactiveInvestors - N.America) iAnthus Capital Holdings Inc. (CSE:IAN) said on Tuesday that affiliate Mayflower Medicinals Inc. has been awarded two provisional licences by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
iAnthus entered into a lending facility agreement on July 1 to provide capital to finance, in part, for the build-out of Mayflower's cultivation facility and up to three medical cannabis dispensaries in Massachusetts.
The two vertically integrated licences will allow Mayflower to operate medical dispensaries in Boston and Gloucester.
Mayflower was the second company to receive a licence in Boston, which has a population of approximately 700,000 people and is the largest city in Massachusetts. Gloucester is a popular arts and seaport city on the commonwealth's North Shore.
According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, 167 authorised physicians have registered 36,080 patients for medical marijuana certificates of use since July, 2015, when dispensaries began selling in the commonwealth, with the number of monthly applications increasing at an accelerating rate.
Management of iAnthus anticipates groundbreaking on the $5mln state-of-the-art cultivation facility in January, 2017. Based in Holliston, the cultivation facility is expected to total 36,000 square feet with maximum production capability of 8,700 pounds per year.
Cultivation is expected to begin during the second quarter of 2017. The dispensaries are expected to open for business during the fourth quarter of 2017 under the operational direction of Jaime Lewis, a nationally known medical marijuana senior manager with over a decade of cannabis cultivation and dispensary operations experience.
Mayflower is developing a production strategy to provide high-quality medical cannabis products and services to patients in a safe, secure and professionally managed environment.
"Massachusetts is one of the most favourable state environments for companies operating in the regulated cannabis market and one of the company's priority target states in addition to the investments we've already closed in New Mexico and Vermont," said Randy Maslow, president of iAnthus.
"Massachusetts is on track to soon have the largest number of registered patients in New England. With operational start-up expected in the last quarter of 2017 and a regulatory structure favourable to the continued development of a very large medical cannabis market, we anticipate additional investment in Massachusetts going forward."
The company is in the process of finalising local municipal approval for Mayflower's third dispensary location in Massachusetts.
"We've already secured the real estate for our cultivation facility in Holliston, as well as all three of our dispensary locations, and look forward to breaking ground in the fourth quarter," said John Henderson, chief executive officer of Mayflower.
Massachusetts has been home to the fastest-growing population in the Northeast in recent years. The state's population now totals over 6.7mln people, largely concentrated in urban and exurban municipalities. The commonwealth's favourable medical cannabis regulatory structure provides a broad list of qualifying medical conditions and a full range of ingestion methods, and Massachusetts is expected to develop into a lucrative medical cannabis market as the new program ramps up.
iAnthus began trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange this month, and previously announced the closing of a $6.7mln private placement in May. Funds from the private placement will be used to invest in its existing partners in Massachusetts, New Mexico and Vermont.
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