Helping those with chronic arthritis pain is the goal of a Canadian life sciences company that is moving to human trials on a cannabis based medicine.

Brent Zettl, CEO of ZYUS, says over the past three years they’ve performed 30 pre-clinical trials to get to this point. Now, he says they have been approved by both the Australian and US health authorities, to proceed with phase one of the clinical trial. The first phase, being performed in Australia will look at the safety and efficacy of managing pain in those with osteoarthritis. Zettl says they will know later this fall the result of the first trial, and then early next year will move into a phase two clinical trial.

The drug is called Trichomylin, and Zettl says this is the first human trial for their three-part cannabis formulation. The others were in animal models, and before they had plenty of anecdotal evidence in two-part cannabis oils. ZYUS is moving to clinical trials to get the drug as part of the standard care practise. Zettl says the trials will potentially allow the drug to get through the appropriate approval processes to be sold internationally.

The trial began this month in Australia under the banner of HOPE which stands for Human Osteoarthritis Pain Evaluation.

Zettl says ZYUS is also working on their own COVID-19 vaccine. He explains their vaccine development is different then others as they are using a plant to express the protein needed rather than an animal model used in other vaccines. Zettl states so far they’ve been able to prove the vaccine is functional and are working diligently to move the vaccine to the next level. He explains an interesting thing about the ZYUS vaccine is they are able to tailor it towards variants, and that is currently what they are working on.