After the DEA publicly requested submissions for a drug-type CBD mobile test kit, Digipath Labs and CSO Dr. Cindy Orser answered. Now that hemp based products are legal nationally after the passage of the Hemp Farming Act in 2018, authorities need a means to accurately identify hemp from drug-type THC marijuana plants. Both plants look alike, smell alike and dogs respond the same way to both plants. Up until now, the screening process to determine whether a cannabis plant has less than .03% THC needed to be conducted in a lab and could take days. Authorities need a quick, easy and accurate testing kit to determine the potency of hemp crossing state lines. That is why Digipath Inc. has submitted in a provisional patent for True Hemp I.D., a new invention unique to Digipath. Listen to Dr. Orser speak with Donald Baillargeon of MoneyTV about True Hemp I.D.
Transcription:
Donald Baillargeon: “Our first guest is joining us via Skyle, Dr. Cindy Orser is the Chief Scientific Officer of Digipath Incorporated. DIGP is their stock symbol. Dr. Orser, welcome back to the program.”
Dr. Orser: “Hey, thank you for having me back.”
Donald Baillargeon: “I understand that Digipath had an important IP announcement this week to share with the market. Can you bring us up to date?”
Dr. Orser: “Yeah, it’s been a very significant week and it’s only Thursday. We are on this path to continue diversifying our asset holdings in the cannabis space. In line with that this week we filed another provisional patent. This time on an application of single nucleotide polymorphism or SNPS. A molecular based assay that can distinguish hemp from drug-type CBD and drug-type THC producing cannabis. We did this in collaboration with our partners VSSL in British Columbia. We are calling the molecular assay True Hemp ID.”
Donald Baillargeon: “Well Cindy, how do you envision the deployment of the application of your True Hemp ID invention?”
Dr. Orser: “You know since legal hemp and cannabi look alike and they smell alike, dog alert to both of them, so it’s really caused an interstate transport issue under the 2018 Farm Bill that people can transport hemp across state lines. It’s a problem for law enforcement and right now the only way they have to distinguish hemp from a drug-type CBD or THC cannabis is by taking a sample, going to an analytical testing lab and actually extracting the cannabinoids and seeing whether or not the THC content is less than .3% on a dry weight basis. So, now with the application of our new molecular assay, True Hemp ID, we can identify hemp based on this simple genetic assay. It will be a very user friendly portable format that could be used by law enforcement at the site of encountering hemp. Whether it’s in the field, during harvest, during transport or processing.”
Donald Baillargeon: Well what a game changer. Now, what is your projected timeline for launching the technology?”
Dr. Orser: We have a very aggressive timeline to launch this technology. I’ve already entered into an agreement with a third party to reduce this to a kit format that we will then immediately validate both in the laboratory, in a lab based kit as well as in the field in a portable kit. We have also recently got access to an international hemp seed bank so we will be able to validate this across international cultivars of hemp.”
Donald Baillargeon: “Any competition out there in the same application?”
Dr. Orser: “While of course there has been a flurry of genotyping going on and strain registering or cultivar registering for hemp, we don’t really see anything else on the market. Really, the competition would be submitting a sample for whole plant genotyping which of course takes a few days and is rather expensive. As we mentioned earlier, going through the standard approach of analytic chemistry where you need access to an analytical lab. You need access to personnel who know what they are doing to run the instrumentation and to actually getting a chemical analysis. So we do see this as a real game changer. We are just thrilled because we see this as a solution to what has been an intractable problem to date.”
Donald Baillargeon: Once again Digipath Incorporated, DIGP. A remarkable update Cindy, thanks so much.
Dr, Orser: Yes, thank you.
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