Aurora has recently filed a lawsuit against Willow Biosciences for patent infringement. The lawsuit alleges that Willow Bioscience is infringing on one of Aurora’s patents covering different parts of the cannabinoid biosynthetic pathway. The patent listed covers an enzyme called a ‘prenyltransferase’ that converts olivetolic acid to CBGA. This is what I had to say about circumventing the prenyltransferase patent two years ago:

“Elucidated aromatic prenyltransferases from fungi have shown to act on a variety of prenyl groups and aromatic substrates. The promiscuity of these enzymes, among others, show promise for engineering an alternative aromatic prenyltransferase to produce cannabinoids.”

Since then, several other groups have identified prenyltransferases capable of completing the chemical reaction to form CBGA from olivetolic acid. From my previous explanation and these other groups that have discovered alternatives to Aurora’s patent I don’t think it’s likely Willow is infringing on this patent.

The patent I believe Willow could be infringing on hasn’t been granted in Canada yet. The application was filed in 2011, granted in the USA in 2017, but still hasn’t been granted in Canada. The situation puts Willow is a weird spot, if they can demonstrate they’ve circumvented the patent listed in Aurora’s lawsuit against them they can freely sell CBG to anyone outside the USA unless Aurora’s patent they would be infringing on gets granted. They’ll have difficulties competing with plant derived CBG now cannabis varieties with very-high levels of CBGA are on the market. However, they’ve already managed to carve out a space in the United Kingdom’s cannabinoid market through Cellular Goods. The requirement of needing a special license from the Home Office to work with cannabis derived cannabinoids, but not biosynthetically derived cannabinoids, in the UK has created a moat. The licensing moat hinders plant breeders from competing as long as these special licenses remain difficult to obtain.

The same holds true for Hyasynth Biologicals, which means the cost compared to plant derived cannabinoids is likely the reason we haven’t seen Organigram roll out biosynthetically produced cannabinoids in any of their products.

It will be interesting to see how the lawsuit plays out and how things change if/when the patent Willow would likely be infringing on gets granted. Until then, there are plenty of companies in the USA likely infringing on the same patent that was granted in the USA back in 2017.

The preceding is the opinion of the author, and is in no way intended to be a recommendation to buy or sell any security or derivative. The author has no position in any company mentioned.