Philip Campbell
Company: Ascent
Title: CEO and co-founder
Age: 38
For the past 12 months, the editorial staff at Marijuana Venture has compiled a list of candidates for our third annual 40 Under 40 feature. This year, we narrowed our list down from hundreds of worthy candidates to come up with a cross-section of personalities across the U.S. and Canada, from salt-of-the-earth farmers to tech savants. All of them have unique stories, successes and ambitions and all represent the excitement and promise of the cannabis business. We feel honored to share their stories and look forward to watching them push forward in our ever-evolving industry.
Philip Campbell is the CEO and co-founder of one of the few truly international cannabis businesses in the world. His company, Ascent Industries, has operations in the United States, Canada and Denmark, and this summer Campbell expects Ascent to receive its export license, allowing it to move cannabis products from Canada to 15 different countries.
The British Columbia-based company started in 2013 with what was perceived to be a huge victory. Just two months after applying, Ascent received its ready-to-build permit from Health Canada. At the time, only a handful of permits were issued from the thousands of applicants for the country’s medical marijuana program. Campbell and his two co-founders were ecstatic. But their joy was short lived as the company was forced to wait another three years before actually being licensed.
“You can’t really move forward with that kind of uncertainty,” Campbell says.
In lieu of simply waiting it out, Ascent added a few more irons to the fire. The company carefully entered new, international markets as they opened and grew to about 100 employees. Currently, Ascent has a processing and wholesale license in Oregon to distribute four in-house brands — The Quarry, Toko, Nu and Grace Notes — as well as cultivation, processing and wholesale licenses in Nevada. At home in Canada, the company is licensed to cultivate, distribute and sell medical cannabis. The company also has a small office in Copenhagen, which will be instrumental for its upcoming export operations.
Marijuana Venture: You went from web design to co-founding a huge cannabis company. How did that happen?
Philip Campbell: I was a bit involved in the industry in some way or another for about 17 years. I’ve always had a passion for cannabis since I tried it in high school. When Canada came out with the patient system I was a designated grower providing for my friend’s mom who had cancer.
I was doing web design and then the three of us who partnered on that business decided to go after cannabis opportunity. We saw that society was liberalizing and the doors were opening up and inevitably in Canada there was going to be a new system since it was growing so rapidly. So we just decided to go full-steam into medical cannabis and it served us really well. We’re well positioned in the market and it’s a really exciting time to be involved.
In Canada we have a 600,000-square-foot greenhouse that we are in the process of getting licensed right now. That will be putting out over 60 million grams per year. It’s going to be through the federal mail. Once we get licensing for dispensaries, then it will be over the counter.
One of the more exciting things we also have is our 40,000-square-foot extraction and manufacturing facility. No growing, just CO2 and ethanol extraction automated extraction line. We’re putting in an automated gel-capping machine.
MV: How will the export market work?
PC: The license in Canada is a pretty valuable one. It not only gives us opportunities domestically because we legalize cannabis this year, but internationally we’ll be able to export our products into other countries with a federally-approved system.
We can export product to 15 countries. That’s why we incorporated a company in Denmark and why we’re looking at opportunities in Mexico, Australia and Greece.
That’s going to be our approach going forward: to find good local partners to work with and spread our business outward into markets that make sense for us to be in.
MV: How do sales work with your headquarters being on the other side of the world from Denmark?
PC: They’re going to be distributing through pharmacies and stick to a more traditional distribution model in Europe. For that, we’re looking to make sure all our products are GMP-certified. Good Manufacturing Practices are required in order for products to be sold in pharmacies there, so all of our facilities are getting certified for GMP over the next few months.
The prices over there are a lot higher than they are in Canada. The average price in Europe is £12 per gram for wholesale. That’s a good business.
MV: That’s a lot higher than the wholesale prices in Oregon.
PC: That’s why we didn’t go after a license for cultivation in Oregon. We predicted that there was going to be an oversupply of cannabis on the market in Oregon and sure enough, that’s what happened last year. They have a five-year supply from last year’s harvest.
Before they had the rec system, it was an export state and the majority of cannabis was exported from Oregon across the country. All those growers are going to want rec licensing and there’s no limit on the licenses.
That’s why it’s important to understand the market dynamics.
After the election in 2016, a lot of other states got legalization and we decided to go after Nevada opportunities, because we felt it was going to be the best market. That’s proven to be true. The price in Nevada for wholesale cannabis is $3,500 a pound. They capped the number of licenses, but they didn’t cap the amount we can produce.
MV: What’s next for Ascent? Where are you focusing your efforts?
PC: We are looking to go public in May or June on the Canadian Stock Exchange. That’s one of the biggest things we are doing corporately. Currently the only exchange that allows companies with cannabis assets is the CSE. Basically, half of their listings are cannabis companies.
Chronos is allowed on the New York Stock Exchange because they are not anywhere in the U.S. If we didn’t have any U.S. exposure, then we could list on the NASDAQ.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.