The Althea Group Holdings Ltd (ASX: AGH) share price has continued its positive run with another charge higher on Tuesday.
The cannabis company's shares were up as much as 12% to an all-time high of $1.13 at one stage. When its shares hit that level it meant they had gained a remarkable 465% since their IPO in September.
Although its shares have since dropped back a touch, they are still up over 6% to $1.07 at the time of writing.
Why is the Althea share price racing higher again?
This morning Althea announced that its UK-based business has furthered its relationship with independent scientific committee Drug Science with the goal of increasing the number of patients that can be prescribed medical cannabis in the UK market.
According to the release, Drug Science is about to launch Project TWENTY21, which is the UK's first national pilot for medical cannabis.
Project TWENTY21 will officially launch on July 18 and aims to enrol 20,000 patients before the end of 2021.
Althea looks set to benefit from the pilot as it has been selected from a limited number of medicinal cannabis companies to supply, on commercial terms, its range of products to Project TWENTY21.
Initially the project will be focusing on patients in which alternative treatments have failed. These include chronic pain, PTSD, anxiety, multiple sclerosis, and Tourette's syndrome.
Project TWENTY21 intends to develop a body of evidence using a real-world data registry which documents the efficacy, safety, quality-adjusted life year, and patient-reported outcomes of medical cannabis use.
After which, this data will be used to support applications to health authorities in the expectation that there will soon be a new regulatory system for medical cannabis in the UK.
Althea's chief medical officer, Dr Robert Pawinski, said: "Althea is proud to be able to provide our medicinal cannabis as part of the national pilot, and resources to ensure patient access. We believe the pilot program will yield valuable data that can then be used to further bolster the case for wider medicinal cannabis use and inform public health and stakeholder decisions."
Elsewhere, the shares of Industry peers Auscann Group Holdings Ltd (ASX: AC8) and Cann Group Ltd (ASX: CAN) have dropped lower despite there being no news out of them.
