2018-11-01

Rob Davidson, CEO CURE on the partnership with Canopy Growth on Big Biz Show – 10/25/2018 (Pt 2)

Video Transcript

Sully: Okay, so great to have you on today and I love the fact that we get to interview CEOs every once in a while. This particular CEO was brought to our attention by one of you. We had a couple viewers say, “You should interview this pharma company named CURE Pharmaceutical.”

Russ: That’s a great time.

Sully: Right? You can go to curepharmaceutical.com. They are publicly traded under stock symbol CURE and today I’ve got Rob Davidson, the CEO of CURE Pharmaceutical here with us. Rob, how are you? It’s really good to have you on.

Rob: Doing great, thank you. [inaudible 00:00:31].

Sully: So, I spend a lot of time with your website. I spend a lot of time with your stock. I spent a lot of time in the last couple days looking at you guys after we knew you were going to come on air with us. Talk to us just as an overview for our TV audience across the country and our radio audience about what you guys do because this is some pretty interesting stuff.

Rob: Sure, absolutely. So, yeah, we’re a broad-platform drug delivery technology company, fully, vertically integrated in Oxnard, California. We have an FDA-registered facility. We do all research and development all the way through research and development feasibility stages, all the way through commercialization and the end product.

Basically what we do is we develop better ways of delivering drug actives to the body, delivering it more effectively, increasing permeability and bioavailability. We work with a multitude of different actives, including pharmaceutical APIs as well as now in the endocannabinoid space, cannabinoid molecules, and delivering those more effectively.

Russ: Wow, but up till now it’s pretty much…

Sully: By the way, I misspoke. Their stock symbol is CURR. I’ve been looking at it for a couple of days. CURR is their stock symbol. What’s interesting here is that you guys have replaced the need for swallowing medication or injecting medication with those Listerine strips, Russ.

Russ: That’s what I’m thinking. Put one on your tongue, it dissolves on your tongue. There’s that type.

Sully: It’s the same type of technology. Was it not, though, Rob?

Rob: Yeah, that’s accurate actually. It’s a little different. The premise is the same. The technology is a little more advanced than a Listerine strip. We’re able to deliver a multitude of drug actives, high amounts of drug actives in the thin film as well in combination therapies, so that’s important to have multiple actives in it. Also, we do it by delivering sublingual, under the tongue, between the cheek and the gum/buccal. That’s really important. It gets into the blood quick, bypassing that first-pass degradation of the active getting into the stomach then the liver, so you’re going to get more active actually into the body.

Sully: And this is all part of the sublingual push for medicine that started coming out a number of years ago, and interestingly enough the efficacy increases by how fast your medicine gets in your bloodstream. No surprise with that. Rob, is this a difficult thing to get through the FDA? Because obviously I mean the tried true method is pop a pill, drink some water with it, or inject something.

Russ: I mean everything’s difficult.

Sully: This is relatively new technology for the FDA, is it not?

Rob: It’s definitely new technology. There’s some buccal delivery technologies out there in tablet forms and some other oral patches, but that being said, the FDA, if it’s a proven molecule already, we’re basically just changing the delivery format or the dose format. So, there are some studies we have to do. There is some abbreviated process by the FDA. There’s the 505(b)(2) process. There’s ANDA process. So, there’s ways to get it approved quicker, especially if the molecule is safe and you’re showing safety. And actually on point with that is that if you can deliver an active more effectively into the body, you potentially use less active to get the same effect so you’re going to widen the therapeutic index and you’re going to actually increase that safety profile of the drug active. That’s what we’re really excited about.

Sully: By the way, this product is called CUREfilm. His name is Rob Davidson. He’s the CEO of CURE Pharmaceutical. You can go to curepharmaceutical.com, their website, and they are publicly traded under stock symbol CURR. So, here’s the deal though. You have this thing, and I hope I read this right. You have this three-layer technology where you can take literally multiple medications with one of these sublingual strips.

Russ: Am I right? You eliminate the need to take multiple pills and stuff. Am I accurate about that?

Rob: Yeah, you can definitely. There are limitations like any type of delivery system but, yes, we put up to five different actives on it in the film. So, to your point, you don’t have to take five different pills. You can actually take the one thin film that delivers these five different actives at once. So, there is that opportunity. You know, we’re excited about the pediatric sector. If you think about kids taking pills, it’s very difficult. Another point, the geriatric sector, too, right? Geriatrics, I mean swallowing pills is difficult for them.

Russ: Yeah, you get that gag reflex.

Sully: Right, Russ? So, for you.

Russ: Yes, that gag reflex I can do without. And do they work like the Listerine where you put it on your tongue? Because sublingual is under the tongue if I’m not mistaken. So, is this called lingual or what’s this called?

Rob: No. There’s three ways to deliver using the thin film. One is under the tongue. We create a mucoadhesive component to the thin film. You place it under the tongue, it stays in place, and it dissolves slowly. The other one is between the cheek and gum. You know, chewing tobacco. People, they say, park it there because nicotine gets into the blood quicker. That’s an absolute. And we have a technology for that as well and a mucoadhesive thin film that parks right in the cheek and the gum area and delivers the active effectively through the blood. And then the other way is actually just like a Listerine where you would put it on your tongue. And we consider that as a PO delivery. And there are some techniques we utilize for that delivery system as well – encapsulation technologies, liposomes, phospholipids. Now we’re working on nanoparticulation and nanoencapsulation as well.

Russ: And they come in spearmint and peppermint, that’s the nice way.

Rob: Yeah, multiple flavors.

Sully: Hey, you know, one really interesting sector of your business is the sleep club, your CUREfilm Sleep Stripzzz. You can actually go to a website called joinsleepclub.com.

Russ: I want one.

Sully: You are effectively treating sleep apnea, are you not?

Rob: Well, it’s actually sleep deprivation. This one’s not for sleep apnea. We are working on a project with sleep apnea, but I have a sleep product right here that’s the sleep drug you just mentioned, so very nicely done. Yeah, the sleep product’s great. It has five different actives in it actually as we discussed before, and it’s basically…I’m not going to take it because I’ll be asleep, but it’s a thin film, it’s light-weight, and you just place this right on the tongue. This one’s actually not sublingual. It’s actually just PO and it effectively delivers the medication, you know, swiftly. And, you know, 10 minutes to 15 minutes, you’ll start to feel relaxed and…

Russ: And you wake up without that stinky breath. This is great. I love you.

Sully: Hey, Rob, I’m going to keep you over because there is a segment of the market that these guys are attaching to. That’s a pretty interesting investment deal to talk about. His name’s Rob Davidson. He’s the CEO of CURE Pharmaceutical, curepharmaceutical.com or you can even go to joinsleepclub.com at the same time. They are publicly traded under stock symbol CURR. More “Big Biz Show”.

Russ: Oh, wow, wait a second, man. What do you think the teacher’s going to look like this year?