AGORACOM Small-cap Investor Relations Blog

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 8, 2020 / Mota Ventures Corp. (CSE:MOTA)(FSE:1WZ1)(OTC PINK:PEMTF) (the “Company“) is pleased to announce its financial results for the first quarter ending March 31, 2020. All financial information in this press release is reported in Canadian dollars, unless otherwise indicated. The press release is intended to be read in conjunction with the Company’s unaudited Condensed Interim Consolidated Financial Statements and Management Discussion & Analysis for the three months ended March 31, 2020, which are filed under the Company’s profile on SEDAR (www.sedar.com), and also available on the Company’s website.

First Quarter 2020 Key Highlights include:

• The Company acquired online cannabidiol (CBD) product distributor Nature’s Exclusive from Unified Funding, LLC.
• Agreement finalized with Sativida OU (Estonia) and Sativida OU’s subsidiary, VIDA BCN LABS S.L (collectively, “Sativida”) to acquire Sativida in stages.
• The Company acquired the intellectual property and trade names of Sativida in Spain, which will be licensed back in exchange for a royalty associated with gross revenues generated by Sativida.
• The Company entered into a Licensing and Royalty Agreement with Phenome One Corporation (“Phenome”) for the right to cultivate, harvest, process and sell a selection of cultivars from Phenome’s genetic library, and the Company was granted unlimited access to a Phenome’s proprietary nutrient intellectual property (IP) and catalogue.
• The Company entered into a Joint Venture with BevCanna Enterprises Inc (“BevCanna”) to distribute BevCanna branded beverage products infused with hemp-derived CBD in the European market.
• Consolidated Q1 2020 gross revenue was $7.65 million, with cost of goods sold of $7.05 million, resulting in gross profits of $605,150. Operating and other operating expenses for the three months ended March 31, 2020 were $5.24 million.
• The Company raised $1.72 million through share subscriptions received for the issuance of units at $0.28 and received $309,000 in proceeds from the exercise of warrants.
• The Company ended Q1 2020 with $2.1 million in cash.

Management Commentary

“In the midst of evolving challenges resulting from the global novel coronavirus outbreak, the Company realigned priorities to include focus on the health and safety of our employees, customers and suppliers. The way our team adapted and performed was exceptional. I am also pleased to announce that, despite the unprecedented uncertainties resulting from the coronavirus, our operations and supply chains performed without interruption, and the Company achieved targets in line with expectations. In order to capitalize on the global market, we recognize the need to be flexible and proactive in addressing market trends. For the second quarter our objectives are to yield increased revenues and higher gross margins. Due to the initial cost of customer acquisition, transitioning more customers into our monthly subscription will significantly increase margins.” stated Ryan Hoggan CEO of the Company.

About Mota Ventures Corp.

Mota Ventures is an established natural health products and eCommerce technology company focusing on the CBD and psychedelic medicine sectors. The company has a strong presence in both North America and Europe. In the United States, Mota Ventures offers a CBD hemp-oil product line derived from hemp grown and formulated in the US through its Nature’s Exclusive brand. Within Europe, the company’s Verrian operations is currently conducting clinical studies utilizing proprietary products for the treatment of opiate addiction. The highly skilled Verrian team also manages Mota Ventures’ 110,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Radebeul, Germany. In addition, Mota Ventures’ Sativida brand of award winning 100% organic CBD oils and cosmetics are sold throughout Spain, Portugal, Austria, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. The company is also seeking to acquire additional revenue-producing natural health product brands and operations in both Europe and North America with the goal of establishing an international distribution network utilizing its eCommerce technology platform.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

MOTA VENTURES CORP.

Ryan Hoggan

Chief Executive Officer

For further information, readers are encouraged to contact Joel Shacker, President at +604.423.4733 or by email at [email protected] or www.motaventuresco.com

SPONSOR: Mota Ventures Corp is an established natural health products company focused in the CBD and psychedelic medicine sectors. Through their powerful eCommerce business, Mota is a leading direct-to-consumer provider of a wide range of natural health products throughout the United States and Europe. Click Here for More Info

The successful use of controlled substances such as ketamine and psilocybin mushrooms to treat mental health issues like depression and anxiety has ushered in a new era of interest in psychedelic drugs. But for researchers and clinicians eager to expand such therapies, an obvious question remains: Does treatment with psychedelics necessarily require a psychedelic experience?

An international research team hopes to answer that question by researching and developing a new class of drugs that offers the same fast-acting mental health benefits as traditional psychedelics without the disorienting, sometimes uncomfortable effects of a full-blown trip. Funded by $26.9 million from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a new project announced this month “aims to create new medications to effectively and rapidly treat depression, anxiety, and substance abuse without major side effects,” according to a University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine press release.

“Although drugs like ketamine and potentially psilocybin have rapid antidepressant actions, their hallucinogenic, addictive, and disorienting side effects make their clinical use limited,” said Brian L. Roth, a professor of pharmacology at UNC School of Medicine and the research project’s leader. “Our team has developed innovative methods and technologies to overcome these limitations with the goal of creating better medications to treat these neuropsychiatric conditions.”

Research into the possible therapeutic effects of currently illicit drugs such as ketamine, psilocybin, MDMA and others has expanded tremendously during the past decade. Nonprofit groups such as the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies have led the way, with university researchers and drugmakers entering the mix more recently.

In September of last year, Johns Hopkins University announced the launch of the nation’s first-ever psychedelic research center, a $17-million project to study the use of psychedelics to treat conditions such as opioid use disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Government interest in psychedelic drugs has also grown. Also in September, DARPA, a federal agency that exists to support the development of emerging technologies for use by the U.S. military, announced its Focused Pharma program, meant to develop drugs “that work quickly and deliver lasting remedies for conditions such as chronic depression and post-traumatic stress.”

While that DARPA announcement didn’t mention specific substances or even use the word “psychedelics,” it referred to “certain Schedule 1 controlled drugs that engage serotonin receptors” and that have “significant side effects, including hallucination.”

The press release for the new DARPA-funded project, lead by Roth at UNC, mentions ketamine and psilocybin specifically. The team will use both biological modeling and sophisticated computational approaches in an effort to design fast-acting drugs inspired by psychedelics but free from what researchers call “disabling side effects.”

“Depression, anxiety, and substance abuse affect large segments of the population,” Roth said. “Rapidly acting drugs with antidepressant, anti-anxiety, and anti-addictive potential devoid of disabling side effects do not exist, not even as experimental compounds for use in animals. Creating such compounds would change the way we treat millions of people around the world suffering from these serious and life-threatening conditions.”

At DARPA, Dr. Tristan McClure-Begley, Focused Pharma’s program manager, said last fall that the agency’s interest in developing such drugs is due to the country’s large number of veterans with PTSD and other mental health conditions.

“It is research we need to undertake given the scale of the mental health crisis our veterans face,” he said in September, “and if it works, the payoff is a completely new, safe, and effective therapeutic option that transforms complex and previously intractable mental conditions into something more acutely treatable.”

Along with Roth at UNC Chapel Hill, the newly announced research project includes members Georgios Skiniotis and Ron Dror of Stanford University, Jian Jin of Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, Brian Shoichet and Nevan Krogan of University of California at San Francisco and William Wetsel of Duke University.

SOURCE: https://www.marijuanamoment.net/military-invests-27m-to-develop-new-class-of-psychedelics-inspired-drugs/