Dixie Makes its First East Coast Entrance via New Partnership
- By Drew Ferguson
Dixie Makes its First East Coast Entrance via New Partnership with Maryland’s Curio Wellness As discussed in this recent New York Times article…national expansion for a cannabis company is no easy feat. No interstate commerce. No banking. State-by-state regulatory structures which dictate packaging, product types, dosages, etc. All of it adds up to a business model that by any other standards of business would appear to be a monumental challenge, even in the best of circumstances. But this is cannabis. We aren’t scared of a little hard work and elbow grease. And we also know the secret to making our expansion just a little bit easier—a good partnership. This week we announced our newest expansion market, Maryland with our newest partners, Curio Wellness. This past August, Curio was awarded stage one license pre-approval for growing and processing medical cannabis in the state of Maryland. This new partnership marks our first East Coast market and a major turning point for us as we grow our footprint nationally.
One of the things that really attracted us to this partnership was Curio’s intense focus on Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). Dixie’s line of clinically oriented products (those that fall within the provisions of the state regulations), will be manufactured in Curio’s new, state-of-the-art facility in Timonium, MD. In addition to GMP, this facility was designed and built to Federal Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines, includes 45,000 square feet of hygienic cultivation and 10,000 square feet of processing and manufacturing space, and contains a full clean room and laboratory.
Sufficed to say, we have been more than impressed with their team, and their leadership within the growing Maryland market. The state only awarded about 15 licenses each for growing and processing and we certainly agree with their choice of Curio. As our CEO, Tripp Keber mentioned in Curio’s press release announcing the relationship, “We wanted to position our East Coast entrance with a company who shared our commitment to research, education, compliance and innovation in the medical cannabis industry. Curio Wellness has demonstrated this commitment, and we fully support their vision for providing superior patient care rooted in science. We are proud to partner with them exclusively in Maryland.”
If all goes well, and we know it will, Curio Wellness expects to begin manufacturing and distributing Dixie products in 2017. For additional information and company inquiries, please visit http://curiowellness.com/. We look forward to serving the patients of Maryland very soon and we thank you for allowing patients in need to access this important medicine.
