Photo | Courtesy of ProVerde
ProVerde Laboratories in Milford.
August 3, 2021
Q&A: Milford cannabis tester expanding as industry grows more accepted
Photo | Courtesy of ProVerde
Sample testing underway at ProVerde labs in Milford.
ProVerde Laboratories, a cannabis testing lab in Milford, was one of the first two of such laboratories to open in Massachusetts. After operating in the medical market for years, including at a satellite location in Maine, the company plans to expand to the Massachusetts adult-use market this week in August. This expansion will include growing its employee base, and, perhaps in the further future, opening in other states. President Chris Hudalla and CEO Peter Ianuzzi spoke with WBJ about the company’s past, future plans, as well as the history of the cannabis testing market.
Can you tell me a bit about the company’s history and how you came to have an outpost in Milford?
Chris: I’ve lived in Milford for 22 years. I was actually working for manufacturer Waters Corp., whose home base is here in Milford. I was there for 14 years. In 2013, ProVerde was founded with an initial startup location in Franklin. That’s where my business partner was located at the time, and we incubated in the back of a warehouse there.
In June of 2014, we moved here, because I don’t like to commute, and it’s closer to home. At the time, Milford was a logical location in terms of its access to I-495, but still outside of the Boston area; and we had a lot of dispensaries around here.
We were operational as a medical marijuana testing facility from the onset of that licensing program. At that time, there were only two labs, and ProVerde was one of the first. And then, as they created the adult-use program, we started the application process for that. So, we’re very eager to finalize that and be participating in the whole industry, rather than just the medical segment.
If you had to describe the state of the state of the cannabis testing industry, what would you say?
There will be huge growth. We do testing outside of the regulatory market, and some people are bringing us products they’re sourcing off the black market. We have seen extreme levels of contamination in some of these products. In the private sector, it’s really critical, as some people are trying to source product for, maybe medically for their child with epilepsy or, maybe their grandmother with arthritis.
Things like pesticides and heavy metals can get in these off-market or off-regulatory markets are pretty critical for their use with these products. Our role is very important. But as we see the number of regulated licenses increase dramatically, just look over the last three years, there weren’t for a long time enough laboratories to provide the testing necessary for those products, which resulted in long turnaround times, sometimes up to six weeks.
So, there’s definitely a need for more testing labs.
Can you speak more to the testing you do of off-market products?
It’s exactly the same testing, it’s just not from the regulatory market. Off market would be somebody who might be growing their own product for their medication or growing it for recreational purposes for their own relaxation. We work with a number of families creating their own medicine for their children with epilepsy, for instance.
A lot of these products that are highly effective for treatment of epilepsy are oftentimes not commercially available in the dispensary. These high-CBD strains are oftentimes seen as not profitable, and so they don’t necessarily sell a lot of those products. And so these parents will grow themselves, we’ll help them with guidance on how to extract it or prepare it into a doseable format for their children, and test it to make sure that the dosing is correct and to make sure there’s no heavy metals and pesticides. The contaminants are especially critical.
When we’re talking about home-growers, I think a lot of people would think growing plants organically in their garden would be safer because there’s less hands on it. That’s not the case?
No, it’s not the case. I frequently have people say they’re only using some organic pesticide, and because it’s organic, that means it’s safe. I frequently explain to them snake venom is organic, and it’ll kill you. Just because it’s extracted from a natural source does not mean that it’s safe for inhalation or ingestion.
What kinds of changes are you making as you expand into the adult-use market?
We’ve had some downsizing because of COVID, and it was hard. But I would say, in the past three months, we’ve doubled our staff in the lab. We would expect to double that again in the next three months. So, my goal would be to add on another, over the course of the year, probably another 15 people.
How do you attract talent in the cannabis testing business?
It’s evolved over the years. Back when we first started, it was difficult to attract high-level candidates because of the perception of cannabis being illicit. Myself, I was very nervous leaving corporate America to go into the cannabis industry. I literally thought it would be the end of my career as a respected chemist, and it actually did just the opposite.
It gave me a platform and propelled me to the spot I never would have achieved inside of corporate America. Back in the day, it was difficult to convince people who had scientific training to give up the high salaries and the high benefits of working for a pharmaceutical company. It was almost impossible to attract them. Today, with the increased acceptance of cannabis as a therapeutic, cannabis as a recreational product, it’s become more mainstream. There’s a much more diverse group of people who utilize it from many age groups.
So, there’s less stigma associated with that in terms of hiring. We still have the challenge where the industry is still nascent enough we don’t have the salary offerings big pharma would have, like at Genzyme or Pfizer. It’s very difficult to compete with some of those salaries and compensation packages. In lieu, what we can offer them is being part of the incredible growth of the cannabis industry.
It sounds like industry acceptance has changed a lot from the science perspective.
For decades, all of the scientific disciplines have had their conferences. Chemistry, biology, physics -- there’s many, many conferences and scientific gatherings. But today, there’s almost not a conference that goes on in the scientific world that doesn’t include subsections of cannabis, as a technology or a therapeutic. So, it has become part of the scientific mainstream and discussion. That’s an important change that’s happened over the last five years.
Massachusetts was the first state to mandate analytical testing for cannabis. Before that, there were some states with cannabis testing labs, but most of the testing was done for marketing purposes, to show THC content. Massachusetts was the first state to mandate testing based on safety, and that’s a key part of the platform replicated in state after state as they bring on cannabis programs.
California has had lab testing for probably 15 years, and none of it was required. So, they really weren’t doing pesticide or heavy metal testing. And because it was all marketing, it became known for pay to play. If you pay a little extra money, you get higher THC results, and that means you can sell your product at a higher price point. It led to an environment of shenanigans and dishonesty rather than consumer safety, which is really what the birth of the cannabis testing program in Massachusetts was -- kind of the origins of cannabis safety testing in the United States.
This interview was conducted and edited for length and clarity by WBJ Senior Staff Writer Monica Benevides.
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