Rua Awarded Callaghan Innovation Funding

FOR PUBLIC RELEASE
NZX Limited
Wellington

Tuesday, 23 November 2021


Rua Awarded Callaghan Innovation Funding

Pharmaceutical company Rua Bioscience Limited (NZX: RUA) has received milestone funding
from Callaghan Innovation to support a transformative research project.

The $376,000 grant will reinforce the company’s projected $1.25m investment into plant science
and product development (a requirement of the backing) and fund projects critical to the
company’s quest to create superior medicinal cannabis products unique to the market.

Rua Bioscience’s Chief Research Officer, Dr Jessika Nowak, says Rua will deploy Callaghan
Innovation’s funding across the company’s value chain.

“The Callaghan Innovation funding will support one project feeding into a range of innovative
ventures from cultivation to packaging. Those projects include the identification of high-
performing commercial cultivars developed by our world-class cultivation team in Ruatorea; the
existing hyperspectral imaging project, which looks to revolutionise crop management practice;
advancements in CO
2
extraction; packaging innovations to improve the quality and stability of
Rua products; and DNA tracking and protection of unique Rua cultivars,” she says.

Rua Bioscience CEO, Rob Mitchell, says the funding will accelerate specific projects he describes
as future-focused.

“While we’ll get pharmaceutical-grade product to market as quickly as we can, we are looking at
innovations right across the value chain to create exceptional products that prescribers and
patients around the world actively seek out,” he says.

“Our relationship with Callaghan Innovation means we can accelerate our bid to create premium-
quality Rua branded products for a global market with valuable and defendable points of
difference,” he says.

Rua recently received GMP certification and announced the company would have product
available for New Zealand patients early next calendar year. The company also expects to export
product to Germany by the close of 2022.

In June, Rua launched its ground-breaking, two-year research programme with the University of
Waikato to investigate the application of hyperspectral imaging to determine optimal harvest
timings, detect pests and diseases and view the chemical profile of living plant matter. The
research programme will pave the way for Rua to enter the global cannabis testing industry,
expected to be worth $2.5bn (USD$1,806 million) by 2025
1
.

MARKET ANNOUNCEMENT

Ends.

For more information, please contact:
Kerry Donovan
Communications Manager Rua Bioscience
Email: kerry.donovan@ruabio.com
Phone: 021 128 7689

New Zealand pharmaceutical company Rua Bioscience aims to be a leading producer of
cannabinoid derived medicines. The company was established in 2017 to support local economic
development in Te Tairāwhiti and is a forerunner in the New Zealand medicinal cannabis sector.

Rua has developed two commercial-scale facilities (a controlled cultivation site in Ruatorea and a
manufacturing and extraction plant in Gisborne) and holds a New Zealand exclusive contract
with German distributor Nimbus Health to supply dried flower to Germany. Rua also has a well-
defined strategy to identify long-term value opportunities across the medicinal cannabis value
chain.

Research Cited
1
Markets and Markets. (2021, January). Cannabis Testing Market by Products & Software’s
(Instruments, Consumables, LIMS), Services (Heavy Metal Testing, Microbial Analysis, Potency,
Residual Screening), End-User (Cultivators, Laboratories, Research Institutes) - Global Forecast to
2025. Retrieved May 2021, from MarketsandMarkets.com:
https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/cannabis-testing-market-46932450.html