Cannabis Health Symposium: Frankfurt

1. 09:00Doors open — registration & networking coffee
2. 09:20

   Welcome

Morning session

1. 09:40

   Industry session

   Industry spotlight — to be announced

   This slot could be yours — become a partner

2. 10:00

   Industry session

   Industry presentation — to be announced

   This slot could be yours — become a partner

3. 10:20

   Panel discussion

   Medical Cannabis in Europe: What Other Markets Can Teach German Practice

   European markets have spent the last decade running parallel experiments in how cannabis-based treatments reach patients, and each has produced hard-won lessons in prescribing protocols, dispensing standards, and clinical governance. This session translates that experience into practical guidance for German HCPs and pharmacists working under a framework reshaped by the July 2026 removal of cannabis flowers from statutory coverage.

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   Speakers from three to four markets will detail the operational aspects of their systems: how prescribers select products, how pharmacies handle verification, quality assurance, and patient counselling, how drug interactions and complex comorbidities are managed in practice, and where each market has seen avoidable clinical or dispensing errors.

   Attendees will leave the panel with a comparative reference for their own workflows and a clearer view of which practices are worth importing into German settings.

4. 11:00

   Panel discussion

   Pharmaceutical Quality: Does Europe Need a Common Framework for Medical Cannabis?

   Germany has built one of the most demanding quality regimes in Europe. Flower is imported almost entirely from abroad, released against the Ph. Eur. monograph, and tested again at pharmacy level before it reaches the patient. For prescribers, that layered system is the main assurance that what they write on the prescription is what the patient receives.

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   This panel asks how much that assurance is really worth once you look across borders. The same cultivar can move through very different quality pathways depending on the country of origin and the interpretation of GMP applied at each stage, yet it arrives in the German pharmacy under a single monograph. Panellists will look at what this means clinically, particularly for batch to batch consistency, product substitution when supply fails, and the documentation prescribers rely on when questions of liability arise.

5. 11:40

   Presentation

   When Does a Standard Become a Rule? ASTM D37, GMP and the Medical Cannabis a German Doctor Prescribes

   A German prescriber writes for a product cultivated and processed almost entirely outside Germany. Between the plant and the prescription sits a layer of voluntary consensus standards that few clinicians ever see, but which shape how quality, testing and manufacturing are defined in practice long before any regulator formalises them.

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   ASTM International Committee D37 has developed more than forty such standards since 2017, drawing on over a thousand experts across thirty countries, including Health Canada, the National Research Council of Canada and U.S. Pharmacopeia. Several have already been adopted directly into regulation. Recent work on quality management systems and good manufacturing practices addresses exactly the jurisdictional inconsistency Europe has not yet resolved.

   This session introduces that landscape to a clinical audience, shows where consensus standards complement pharmaceutical regulation and where they fill gaps legislation has not reached, and sets out the remit of D37's new Health subcommittee.

6. 12:00

   Presentation

   Endometriosis and Beyond: Medical Cannabis in Women's Health

   • Dr. Shabnam Sarshar · Women's Health & Cannabinoid Therapeutics Advisor, The Recalibration
   • Sylvia Mechsner · Physician and Gynaecologist, Charité University Hospital

   Around two million women in Germany live with endometriosis, and it still takes eight to ten years on average to reach a diagnosis. Hormonal therapy and surgery remain the mainstays, but many patients report inadequate pain control, poor sleep and side effects they struggle to tolerate. In that gap, patients have moved ahead of the evidence. In a survey of more than 900 German-speaking endometriosis patients led by the Endometriosis Research Center at the Charité, cannabis was rated the most effective self-management strategy, with the largest gains in sleep and menstrual pain and around nine in ten respondents reducing their use of conventional analgesics. This talk sets out what is understood about the endocannabinoid system in endometriosis pain, what patient-reported data can and cannot support, and where cannabinoids might sit in a multimodal pathway.

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   Chronic pain and insomnia are among the most common indications for medical cannabis prescription, and both are more prevalent in women, with fibromyalgia alone representing an addressable German market of roughly €72 million. Yet there are almost no high-quality trials on sex differences in cannabinoid pharmacology, no products formulated for female physiology, and little guidance on how cycle phase or hormonal status affects dose and response. The July 2026 removal of cannabis flower from statutory coverage sharpens the problem, landing on a patient group already paying out of pocket.

   This session discusses how the endocannabinoid system contributes to endometriosis pain, what weight prescribers should give patient-reported data in the absence of trials, why sex differences in cannabinoid response remain so poorly characterised, and what needs to change in research funding, product development and reimbursement.

7. 12:30Lunch & networking

Afternoon session

1. 13:30

   Presentation & discussion

   The Changing Role and Responsibilities of Pharmacists in Germany

   • Antonia Menzel · Chair of the Executive Board, BPC - Bundesverband pharmazeutischer Cannabinoidunternehmen e.V.

   As medical cannabis prescribing increases, pharmacists are playing an increasingly important role in ensuring product quality, patient safety and regulatory compliance. This session will explore pharmacy responsibilities including dispensing, compounding, quality assurance, product selection and patient counselling, while addressing the need for greater professional education.

2. 14:00

   Presentation

   Cannabinoids vs Opioids: A New Effective Class of Treatment for Chronic Pain?

   Chronic pain remains one of the largest unmet needs in healthcare, affecting more than one billion people worldwide. Despite its major medical, social and economic burden, innovation in treatment has substantially lagged behind other major disease areas. After more than a decade in development, the first cannabinoid-based medicine for the treatment of chronic lower back pain received market authorisation in Germany and Austria earlier this year. Does this represent a new frontier in the treatment of chronic pain?

3. 14:20

   Panel discussion

   Evidence or Ideology? Making Cannabis Policy Without Data

   • Professor Bernd Werse · Social scientist/ Professor for social work, Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences
   • Sita Schubert · General Secretary, European Medicinal Cannabis Association (EUMCA)
   • Dr. Artur Schrörs · Former Head of the Drugs Department, Frankfurt am Main, Freelancer

   Germany is making far-reaching cannabis decisions without generating the data to support them. Frankfurt sought to close exactly that gap but was blocked. At the same time, statutory patients have lost access to cannabis flower while the evidence base is still being built. Two decisions in opposite directions, one underlying problem. This panel asks who decides what counts as sufficient evidence, what municipalities can contribute when federal instruments stall, and what prescribers should rely on while the data gap remains.

4. 15:00

   Session to be announced

5. 15:40

   Industry session

   Industry presentation — to be announced

   This slot could be yours — become a partner

6. 16:20

   Panel debate

   Telemedicine Debate: Revolution or Risk for Medical Cannabis

   Few developments since CanG have divided German medicine as sharply as telemedical prescribing. Online platforms have brought thousands of patients into treatment who would never have found a willing prescriber locally, and for those in rural areas or with limited mobility the change has been genuine. Critics counter that the same model has created a parallel access route that resembles supply more than medicine, and they have numbers to point at, with prescribed volumes driving a sharp rise in imports and the EKOCAN evaluation unable to establish how much of that product was consumed for medical reasons at all.

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   The legislature has already responded. The government's MedCanG amendment would limit prescribing of cannabis flower to patients seen in person, prohibit mail order dispatch, and require a renewed face-to-face consultation every four quarters. It has not passed. The bill remains in committee with a decision expected in late 2026, and the political mood has shifted towards quality requirements rather than outright prohibition. That leaves the central question open: what should good telemedical cannabis care actually look like, and who decides?

   This panel discusses where remote assessment genuinely serves patients and where it falls short of the standard prescribers would demand of any other controlled substance, how liability is distributed when consultation, dispensing and follow-up sit with three separate providers, what a dispatch ban would mean for continuity of care, and what a quality-led settlement would need to require to satisfy clinicians, regulators and patients alike.

7. 17:00Close & networking