TORONTO, July 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aleafia Health Inc. (TSX: AH) (OTC: ALEAF) (“Aleafia Health” or the “Company”), a global cannabis health and wellness company, is pleased to provide a corporate update on strategic growth initiatives.

“Commencing the production of our first Cannabis 2.0 product formats represents a major milestone for Aleafia Health, as we scale our business,” said Aleafia Health CEO Geoffrey Benic. “Likewise, a successful outdoor planting and the ramp-up of our Niagara Facility provides us with a diversified production ecosystem that allows us to expand our distribution in Canada, through new provinces and globally.”

• Expanding Product Portfolio with Cannabis 2.0: The Company is nearing the launch of new Cannabis 2.0 products to broaden its product portfolio in both the medical and adult-use markets. Following quality assurance testing of formulations and packaging design, the first production run of Kin Slips, the award-winning, cannabis infused sublingual strips, is expected to commence this month. The category market leader in California, Kin Slips provides health and wellness conscious consumers with a consistent, smoke-free cannabis experience, with formulas targeting specific need states, and an expected onset of 10-15 minutes. The Company also expects to commence the sale of universal 510 vape cartridges in the next two to three months, followed by confectionery edibles in the form of soft chews & lozenges, and other new formats.
• Growth in Registered Patients: At June 30, 2020, active, registered patients with the Company’s wholly owned subsidiary, Emblem Cannabis Corporation (“Emblem”), increased to 13,285, from 10,983 patients at March 31, 2020. During Covid-19, the Company has continued to improve and scale its contactless, patient ecosystem. Patients are able to see their physician virtually, order products and have them delivered to their home in the same day, utilizing the direct-to-door AssureHome Delivery (where locally available) offered exclusively to Emblem patients.
• Completion of Outdoor Planting: Planting at the Port Perry outdoor cultivation site is completed, utilizing the entire crop of starter plants originally propagated at the Niagara Facility. The Company expects to benefit from a significantly larger cultivation footprint along with improved infrastructure relative to the 2019 season. The site now has 66 fully planted acres, relative to 13 acres planted in 2019. Drying and irrigation infrastructure, a critical component of outdoor cultivation, has also significantly scaled up. Construction of an additional 30,000 sq. ft. of indoor drying and storage buildings and site-wide underground irrigation has been completed. In 2019, the Company produced 12,747 kgs of outdoor dried flower at an all-in cash cost to harvest of $0.10 per gram.
• Niagara Greenhouse Scaling Up: Upon licensing in March, the Niagara Facility was primarily utilized for the propagation of starter plants destined for the Port Perry outdoor cultivation site. Since the completion of the outdoor propagation crop, the Niagara Facility is now being used for normal course cannabis production, with the first of what will be perpetual, daily harvests expected in approximately eight weeks. The Niagara Facility provides the Company with a stable, consistent inventory of high-quality dried flower products.

For Investor & Media Relations

Nicholas Bergamini
VP Investor Relations
1-833-879-2533
IR@AleafiaHealth.com

Learn More: www.AleafiaHealth.com

About Aleafia Health

Aleafia Health is a vertically integrated and federally licensed Canadian cannabis company offering cannabis health and wellness services and products in Canada and in international markets. The Company operates medical clinics, education centres and production facilities for the production and sale of cannabis.

Aleafia Health owns three significant licensed cannabis production facilities, including the first large-scale, legal outdoor cultivation facility in Canadian history. The Company produces a diverse portfolio of commercially proven, high-margin derivative products including oils, capsules and sprays. Aleafia Health operates the largest national network of medical cannabis clinics and education centres staffed by MDs, nurse practitioners and educators and operates internationally in three continents.

Innovation, the heart of Aleafia Health’s competitive advantage, has led to the Company maintaining a medical cannabis dataset with over 10 million data points to inform proprietary illness-specific product development and its highly differentiated education platform FoliEdge Academy. The Company is committed to creating sustainable shareholder value; the TSX Venture Exchange named Aleafia the 2019 top performing company prior to its graduation to the TSX.

Forward Looking Information

This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities laws and are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Often, but not always, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of words such as “plans”, “expects” or “does not expect”, “is expected”, “estimates”, “intends”, “anticipates” or “does not anticipate”, or “believes” or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results “may”, “could”, “would”, “might” or “will” be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to injection of value this settlement brings to the Company’s business. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company or its subsidiaries to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information contained in this news release. Risks, uncertainties and other factors involved with forward-looking information could cause actual events, results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including risks contained in the Company’s annual information form dated March 18, 2020 which is available on the Company’s SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. The forward-looking information included in this news release is made as of the date of this news release and the Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update such forward-looking information to reflect new information, subsequent events or otherwise unless required by applicable securities legislation.