New director wrote study on cannabis use in spinal cord injury cases.
New Zealand’s largest licensed medicinal cannabis company, Helius Therapeutics, has appointed Dr Rick Acland to its board as an independent director and senior adviser.
Dr Acland is one of New Zealand’s leading pain specialists, who has been a long-time consultant at both Burwood Hospital and the Auckland Spinal Rehabilitation Unit. His career has spanned practice in anesthesia, pain neuromodulation and rehabilitation.
He has conducted many research projects and published widely. In 2017 he presented a paper on the use of cannabis in spinal cord injury (SCI) at the Australian and New Zealand Spinal Cord Society.
More recently Acland co-authored a qualitative study at the Burwood Academy of Independent Living, assessing cannabis use for pain management in people often in constant pain from SCI.
In the just-released University of Otago and Burwood Academy study, participants reported that cannabis reduced their pain quickly and allowed them to engage in daily activities without the side effects of traditional pain medication.
Helius Therapeutics co-chief executive, Paul Manning, said Acland would play an important role in helping Helius develop clinically proven cannabis-based medicines in New Zealand, particularly for pain.
“Appointing one of the country’s most respected pain specialists reinforces the absolute commitment by Helius to develop world-leading natural therapeutic products that will ease the suffering of thousands of New Zealanders,” Manning said.
He said, pain was by far the No 1 condition for which cannabis was used to treat globally, and New Zealand would be no different.
Horizon Research, commissioned by Helius, confirmed that pain would be the No 1 condition that New Zealand patients would seek medicinal cannabis for, and the leading condition that doctors were most likely to prescribe medicinal cannabis.
Dr Acland was president of the New Zealand Pain Society and a member of the Medical Council of New Zealand for nine years.
Mr Manning said several other key appointments at Helius will be announced soon.
Helius Therapeutics is foundation sponsor for MedCan 2020 - New Zealand’s first international medicinal cannabis summit. BioTechNZ is hosting the two-day event on March 18 and 19, 2020, which will include a presentation from Acland.
Helius is a New Zealand-owned biotechnology company focused on medicinal cannabis research and development. It is the country’s largest licensed producer and the first medicinal cannabis cultivator to be certified as New Zealand Grown through Buy NZ Made Campaign. The company is building a facility in Auckland with indoor controlled growing systems, integrated extraction site, an advanced cannabinoid research laboratory and manufacturing operations.
This is supplied content and not commissioned or paid for by NBR.
