Prohibition Partners are proud to launch The European Cannabis Report: 8th Edition today.
The past year has been one of stability for European medical cannabis. There have been no great upheavals or unexpected large scale shifts in the industry, however it has not been static. There has been a steady development of existing trends.
The UK market is growing at a strong pace, which is encouraging for the regional industry, and for global suppliers. A wide and growing diversity of products and players in Germany is resulting in high competition, but steady growth and sizeable margins in the middle and downstream segments of the supply chain mean that the market can continue to support a high number of operators. Denmark and Portugal are increasingly becoming the main hubs of European cultivation, while the Netherlands and Canada are seeing their proportion of the market share declining.
Supply chains are becoming increasingly decentralised, with the past year seeing a notable increase in non-European supply coming into Europe, often as intermediate products which need further processing in Germany, Portugal, or the UK, before reaching patients. A promising move towards regional harmonisation in product standardisation is underway, with a draft monograph for medical cannabis flower published for comment recently by the European Medicines Agency. Publication of the finished monograph will represent the first time that there is a true European standard for a medical cannabis product.
In financial terms though, 2022 was a difficult year for all industries, and the medical cannabis industry was no different. There have been promising signs in recent months that are giving cause for optimism. Steady growth and development, both at the regulatory level and in terms of market size and industrial activity, are welcome themes for European medical cannabis.
The European medical cannabis industry has seen steady growth over the past year and it is projected to reach over €550 million in sales by the end of this year. The UK is set to become the second-largest European market over this time, as has been long-predicted by analysts.
The European CBD market remains complex, and in some aspects opaque, but increasingly the picture is becoming clearer. The normalisation of various channels of the industry is slowly moving forward, though the wait for novel food authorisations continues. The combined market size* of all CBD categories in 2023 is over €2 billion.
Four European countries are in the process of developing regulatory models for an adult-use cannabis market; Germany, Czech Republic, Switzerland and the Netherlands. These early adopters are likely to set a precedent for other countries to follow, and may well form the blueprints for a European adult-use cannabis market.
To access the free-to-download version of The European Cannabis Report: 8th Edition, paid-for market sizing data packages and European Adult-Use Cannabis Report, click here.
