What affects the cost of cannabinoid manufacturing?
To make rare cannabinoids commercially viable products, a high yielding and cost-effective method is required. What impacts the cost and yield of synthesized cannabinoids? A number of components can impact the cost of cannabinoid manufacturing. View this infographic for details.
- Cost of starting materials – What are the building blocks needed to run the manufacturing process? Selecting the most cost-efficient substrates, or starting materials, and optimizing the use of these sophisticated starting materials can greatly reduce the overall manufacturing cost.
- Efficiency of materials used – How effective are the enzymes at combining the starting substrates to produce the desired cannabinoid? To generate a higher yield level, it’s important to produce a high efficiency enzyme to be used in the bulk cannabinoid manufacturing downstream process.
- Number of manufacturing steps – How many manufacturing steps are required? As expected, additional steps in the manufacturing process likely result in longer processing time and more materials used.
- Nature of manufacturing process – How complicated are the process steps? The complexity of the process also results in a longer manufacturing time and additional GMP requirements. Finding efficiencies in the manufacturing steps is key to reducing the manufacturing costs.
- Length of manufacturing process – How long does the process take? Minimizing the length of the the manufacturing cycle allows for greater volume of product in any given time period and optimizes the use of equipment.
- Required standard of finished product – Is this a wellness, functional food or pharmaceutical product? What is the cost differential to manufacture to each of those different standards? The level of quality and purity needed will depend on the use of the product. There are different GMP standards for different product types. Pharmaceutical standard, for therapeutic use, is the most stringent and the standards required are the most costly to achieve.
- Yield level – How much product is made from the process? How much product is lost during purification? The yield is dependant on the conversion of the starting substrates to the final product and varies from cannabinoid to cannabinoid. If there is double the yield level using the same materials and length of time, there is 200% more product at the same cost of manufacturing
