Aligning In-House and Commercial Analytical Testing Workflows for Cannabis Producers and Processors

Accurate and reliable analytical cannabinoid potency data is essential to operating a compliant, consistent, and profitable cannabis company. Third-party testing labs service this industry need by offering testing as a service to cannabis companies. Since testing labs have a vested interest in the sustained success of their clients, successful lab-client relationships are usually more akin to a partnership than a simple service provider. Testing labs understand that supporting their clients throughout the cannabis product development lifecycle is mutually beneficial and endears their clients to their suite of professional laboratory services. However, third-party analytical potency testing at the levels required to sustain good manufacturing practices and to ensure the quality, consistency, and efficiency of manufacturing processes is extremely expensive. Additionally, the informational lag from the sampling-to-result turnaround time creates opportunity for costly process inefficiencies to linger resulting in lost profit margins on manufactured products or increased time-to-market. Supplementing confirmatory third-party potency testing with in-house potency testing significantly decreases the cost and lag time associated with obtaining the analytical information required to operate a successful cannabis business. This talk will focus on the testing needs of cannabis operations requiring high testing volumes such as processors and other vertically integrated businesses and multi-state operators. It will outline how in-house and commercial testing workflows can be aligned through the standardization of analytical hardware, cloud-based software, and sample preparation, analysis, and quantitation methods. A new collaborative testing model is described for democratizing cannabis potency testing, while expanding the professional laboratory services offered by commercial cannabis testing laboratories.

Learning Objectives:

1. Attendees will recognize the benefits of both commercial and in-house testing programs and will be able to identify when to use each.

2. Attendees will have the tools to assess costs associated with several different testing programs available to cannabis businesses.

3. Attendees will realize how commercial laboratories can utilize software to collaborate with in-house testing operations more effectively and create new laboratory service models for their clients.