CannaRoyalty Corp., a cannabis-focused investment company based in Ottawa, plans to pay four million dollars ($3.03 USD) for a 20% stake in Anandia Laboratories, a Vancouver biotech firm that breeds and tests cannabis plants.
Anandia also recently received a “dealers license” from Health Canada that permits it to cultivate cannabis for breeding and strain improvement, as well as to extract and analyze cannabis, according to Business in Vancouver.
Anandia hopes it can turn some of that research and development into salable products. The company is especially interested in creating pest-resistant strains.
“We have elected to partner with CannaRoyalty given their expertise in extraction, post-processing and the development of proprietary formulations,” said Anandia co-founder Jonathan Page.
In recent months, experts have predicted that 2017 would be a year of mergers and consolidation in the Canadian cannabis sector.
Last fall, Anandia received $500,000 ($379,000 USD) from Genome BC, a life sciences research company.