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In my last article, we broke down the “what" and “how” of Pharmacokinetics (PK) and Pharmacodynamics (PD), while establishing why these research methods are the foundation for the future of cannabis infused products.
Today, I want to highlight some brilliant scientific minds doing the heavy lifting in the cannabis PK and PD fields. Their work deserves our gratitude, and I encourage cannabis companies to collaborate with these experts to help generate trusted data to build our industry.
Here are the academic powerhouses helping us understand the cannabis experience.
When it comes to substance effect, safety, and regulation, Johns Hopkins is at the absolute forefront. Their Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit (BPRU) is the authority. Regulators and policymakers constantly cite their data to guide decisions. Simply put, Johns Hopkins sets the gold standard.
At the center of this powerhouse is Prof. Ryan Vandrey, an experimental psychologist who has been in the game for over two decades. His team systematically mapped out how the route of administration, dose, and chemical composition of cannabis products change the way the human body reacts.
One of his recent research is making a huge impact on policy reform. Regulators understand full-spectrum hemp has healing potential, but remain cautious about whether the low amount of THC in those products could be intoxicating. Dr. Vandrey’s team studied the psychoactive effect of 100 mg of CBD with 3.7 mg of THC, which mirrors the commercial full-spectrum wellness products our industry makes today. Their data proved that this trace amount of THC within a high-CBD matrix does not produce impairing and psychoactive intoxication (Spindle et al., 2020). This is the concrete evidence required to definitively separate therapeutic from adult-use applications.
Working right alongside him is Dr. Tory Spindle, whose work is best described as "cannabis regulatory science". Dr. Spindle is currently running a head-to-head study comparing the PK and PD differences when the same THC distillate input is delivered through three different edible vehicles: a distillate-infused gummy, a distillate-infused high-fat brownie, and a nanoemulsified beverage. The result of this study could fundamentally define product efficacy, user experience, and safety.
The Vertosa team is incredibly proud to support this ground-breaking study by providing the emulsion formula in this study. We believe collaborations between industry innovators and academic authorities pave the foundation for our industry to grow.
When we talk about how cannabis affects the brain, we must recognize the pioneering work of Dr. Staci Gruber at Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital.
Dr. Gruber's most direct contribution to the PD side of cannabis science is introducing CannaCount. Published in Scientific Reports in 2023 (Lambros et al., 2023), CannaCount is an examiner-administered metric that estimates a user’s maximum possible exposure to cannabinoids based on their self-reported usage, accounting for concentration, quantity, duration, and frequency of use. Before it existed, most studies measured cannabis use the way you might measure alcohol use by counting drinks, without knowing whether the drink was a light beer or a double shot. Two patients could both report using cannabis "daily," yet one might be consuming a fraction of the THC or CBD of the other, depending on product potency, dose, and frequency.
Because pharmacodynamics is the study of what a given dose of a substance does to the body, you cannot build that relationship without first knowing the dose the participant is consuming. CannaCount gives our field that missing input variable, and is already being adopted as a standard for comparing exposure across studies that would otherwise be impossible to compare.
Beyond CannaCount, Dr. Gruber's MIND program has tracked adult medical cannabis patients over time using neuroimaging, finding improved executive function and increased white matter coherence after just a few months of treatment, the opposite of what earlier recreational-use literature predicted. She has also pushed into research areas the field had largely ignored, launching the Women's Health Initiative (WHIM) to bring empirical data to female-specific conditions like menopause and endometriosis, and running custom-formulated sublingual trials for conditions like anxiety. Together, this body of work forms the safety and efficacy foundation our industry depends on to make responsible claims about cannabis as medicine.
If we want to understand exactly how product formulations interact with the human body through PK studies, we need the appropriate analytical tools. iC42 Laboratory is the best to tackle this! They utilize the gold standard of analytics: a fleet of 17 cutting-edge mass spectrometers, and comprehensive toxicology services capable of confirming the presence of over 136 different drugs and metabolites in a rapid, single run.
For the cannabis industry specifically, their contribution in understanding PK is monumental. They developed and validated highly sensitive methods to simultaneously quantify 17 different cannabinoids and their metabolites in human blood, plasma, urine, and even breast milk (Sempio et al., 2022). They also run advanced metabolic and protein profiling to understand the deeper physiological impacts of cannabis.
Operating as a University Service Center, iC42 established transparent fee-for-service models for industry collaborators. Cannabis companies wanting to get PK results can submit plasma samples and get trusted data.
At the heart of this highly-effective operation is Dr. Uwe Christians, who is a board-certified pharmacologist and toxicologist who brought his decades of academic and industry expertise to the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus to build something entirely unique.
Let's leverage this incredible resource to gain the empirical data we need to elevate our industry!
When it comes to understanding exactly how drugs absorb into the body and alter our state of being, we can’t leave out the academic powerhouse on the west coast: the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
For decades, experts like Dr. Neal Benowitz have been the global authority on the pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD) of tobacco and cannabis. Now, they are bringing that world-class expertise to cannabis infused beverages.
The California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) recently awarded UCSF a ~$2 million grant specifically to test the PK and PD of infused cannabis beverages in the California market. This is a huge step for the infused beverage industry.
Infused beverages are destined to become a main product category, and there is still so much we have yet to discover. How would the effects differ from sipping a beverage slowly compared to chugging it quickly? Would the effect be different when drinking 10mg THC from a 2 oz shot vs a 16 oz beverage? When drinking the second 10mg beverage, would the PK and PD double linearly? How much impact would a high fat meal vs a low fat meal impact the effect? Millions of consumers are curious and this initiative at UCSF is a big step towards those insights.
There are other key players in the cannabis PK and PD space doing great work.
Professor Carrie Cuttler from Washington State University has tons of experience running human trials on cannabis, including her recent groundbreaking study on CBG’s acute effect on mood and stress(Cuttler et al., 2024).
Israel Gasperin runs Zentrela, where EEG is applied to measure brain activity to capture objective data on a subjective feeling, which could be a great addition to traditional PD questionnaire data. My dear friend, Adie Rae, is very experienced and passionate about designing and conducting trials to capture human experiences, and helps companies fully understand the scope and operation to run a formal PK or PD study.
In a few years, the brands left standing will be the ones who can prove what they promise. A strong industry needs a strong tie between the people making the products and the people measuring what those products actually do. The scientists in this article are building that connection and turning our hunches into evidence.
If you want to conduct high quality PK / PD studies, reach out to them!
Dr. Harold Han — the “Happy Chemist” — combines his storied background in emulsion chemistry and science with curiosity and fascination in the rapidly growing cannabis industry. Developing nano and micro emulsions his entire career, Harold holds a Ph.D in Surface Chemistry from NYU and is the holder of multiple patents for his inventions in emulsion chemistry.
As the Chief Science Officer at Vertosa, Harold spearheads the company’s development of industry-leading and customized active ingredients for infused product makers, offering pre-suspended aqueous solutions to create incredibly homogenous and stable products while maximizing bioavailability, clarity, and taste.
To learn more about the science of cannabis, make sure to follow Harold on LinkedIn and check out his Happy Chemist videos.