Cannabis Access, a medicinal cannabis portal for Australian healthcare professionals, has announced the appointment of Dr Sanjay Nijhawan as medical director.
The company said Dr Nijhawan's appointment, following the recent $1 million investment by MMJ PhytoTech, will allow it to accelerate its strategy to work with doctors across Australia and assist with the process of prescribing medical cannabis.
According to Giles Craig, chairman of Cannabis Access, "We are very lucky to have attracted someone of the calibre of Sanjay to our team. His expertise and proven ability to develop early stage businesses in healthcare will be important as we roll out our program helping doctors who wish to prescribe medicinal cannabis to do so efficiently."
Dr Nijhawan is currently also a director and shareholder of Specialist Medical Services, helping manage East Sydney Private Hospital, Sussex Street Day Surgery, George Street Eye Centre, Sydney CBD X-Ray, Cardiology group and Sydney Orthopaedics.
He was previously the head of clinical development at Primary Healthcare. In that role, he was responsible for the company's network of clinics across Australia.
"At the moment there are significant challenges for Australian patients who want to access medical cannabis and doctors who want to prescribe it," said the company. "Based on mature markets for medical cannabis access such as California, we estimate the addressable market in Australia to be around 500,000 patients. Currently, there are only 500 patients who are legally using medical cannabis in Australia at a time when we understand up to 100,000 patients are accessing it through other means."
"We are working on a number of exciting initiatives targeting this large addressable market and will announce these as they come to fruition," added Giles Craig.