Anandia Opens State-of-the-Art Cannabis Testing Headquarters in Vancouver

Celebrates Opening of the Largest Dedicated Cannabis Testing Facility in Canada.

VANCOUVER, Oct. 8, 2019 /CNW/ - Anandia Laboratories Inc. (Anandia), announced today the opening of its new headquarters located in Vancouver, British Columbia. The testing services provided by Anandia are required under Canada's Cannabis Act to help provide assurance that all cannabis-derived products meet Canada's robust regulatory standards. The services also allow consumers access to transparent information about the products they are purchasing through Canada's legal cannabis market.

The new Anandia headquarters is on Great Northern Way, Vancouver's newest hub of technology and innovation, and home to some of B.C.'s biggest business success stories, including Mountain Equipment Co-Op, Emily Carr University, and the forthcoming Lululemon Athletica and Nature's Path headquarters.

This new facility adds 12,600 square feet of laboratory space and approximately 40 new employees, bringing the total company headcount projection to approximately 100 by the end of 2019. A further 13,000 square feet of office space will be added to the headquarters.

This represents a 700% total increase of Anandia's Canadian footprint in the last year, enabling Anandia to scale with and service more Canadian licensed producers and cannabis patients and consumers.

"Anandia was established to provide the science and technical innovations that underpin the growing global cannabis industry. Our new headquarters accelerates and optimizes the work we do as we approach the next phase of cannabis legalization," said Dr. John Coleman, PhD, Co-Founder and President of Anandia. "We look forward to continuing to support a safe and trustworthy cannabis industry with more testing services on the cutting edge of cannabis science."

The new facility is capable of performing 20 different tests on cannabis and cannabis products, including tests for 14 cannabinoids.

The six major components of the new headquarters are as follows:

1. Analytical chemistry and instrument laboratory
2. Microbiology laboratory
3. Chemistry and new method Research & Development laboratory
4. Molecular Research & Development and plant tissue culture laboratory
5. Sample receiving and vault
6. Head office and meeting spaces

Anandia is implementing state-of-the-art technology and automation to increase efficiency and minimize human error at the facility. As an example, Anandia is the first Canadian company to purchase the Perkin Elmer JANUS® G3 workstation robots to increase throughput in sample preparation.

Beyond compliance testing, the new Anandia headquarters will offer several proprietary tests including:

1. Sex identification test for plants to support cultivation and breeding
2. Predictive Profiling^TM to determine the ratio of cannabinoids (THC v CBD) in immature plants
3. Stability testing for shelf life of cannabis products, including edibles and topicals, which are scheduled to be available on the market starting in mid-December 2019

The new headquarters also contains a unique plant tissue culture facility that will offer genetics archiving and backup services to support the plant genetics needs of licensed producers to strengthen productivity of this new high-value crop and the cannabis industry in general.

Grand opening and ribbon-cutting event will take place October 8, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. Ribbon cutting to take place at 10:30 a.m. with small group tours of the laboratories before and after.

About Anandia

Already the industry leader, Anandia is now the largest analytical dedicated cannabis testing laboratory in Canada. Headquartered in Vancouver's burgeoning tech community, Anandia's new state-of-the-art facility was custom designed for cannabis testing. Between the company's Vancouver and Toronto labs, Anandia currently provides 20 different cannabis tests. These include the full suite of testing services required by Health Canada, plus other value-add tests such as full cannabinoid, terpene, and flavonoid profiling; genetic-based testing; predictive profiling; and genetics archiving services. While operating independently, Anandia is a wholly owned subsidiary of Aurora Cannabis. (NYSE, TSX: ACB)

SOURCE Anandia Laboratories Inc.

For high-res photos, video, fact sheet, interview requests and tours, please contact Sarah Bancroft, [email protected], 011-778-866-8769