Aurora in Polish pharmacies: ten strains, eight of which are not supplied by anyone else

• Scale. 10 strains in the list, in 19 pharmaceutical positions.
• What you won’t buy elsewhere. 8 of them are supplied exclusively by this manufacturer, so a break in their supply means a lack of these strains, not another version of them.
• Portfolio profile. Limonene leads, in 3 out of 10 strains, alongside terpinolene, myrcene, nerolidol.
• What is missing. For 3 out of 10 strains, the pedigree remains unestablished and we do not add it based on name similarity.

Who is Aurora and where does the raw material sold under this name come from?

Aurora is the Canadian company Aurora Cannabis based in Edmonton, Alberta. However, its Berlin subsidiary Aurora Deutschland, formerly Pedanios, is listed on the Polish label, and it is responsible for the raw material. The company does not conduct cultivation or production in Poland.

The Berlin company was established in 2015 under the name Pedanios and was engaged in the wholesale sale of medical cannabis in Germany. The Canadian owner took it over in 2017, and in August 2018, the name changed to Aurora Deutschland to carry the brand of the parent company. This ownership structure explains why a German entity is listed in the Polish registry, even though the entire group is Canadian.

Its presence in our market takes the form of an entry in the register of pharmaceutical raw materials approved for trading, rather than a production facility or commercial representation. In response to a parliamentary inquiry in December 2019, the Ministry of Health listed five registered cannabis raw materials at that time: four assigned to Aurora Deutschland and one to Canopy Growth Polska. This was reported by the pharmacy service farmacja.pl at the end of January 2020. All were intended for the preparation of prescription medications in pharmacies, not for dispensing as ready-made medicinal products.

We could not determine where the plant material in the batches arriving in Poland comes from. The group operates facilities in Canada and cultivation in Leuna in Saxony-Anhalt, and the registration entry indicates the responsible entity, not the plantation. The country of origin of a specific batch is recorded in the documentation of its release, which is not publicly accessible.

Which Aurora strains are available in Polish pharmacies?

Ten. In a comparison including eighty-five cultivars present in Polish pharmacies, Aurora accounts for ten names, placing it fifth among sixteen manufacturers. Eight of these names are not listed by any other supplier, so the disappearance of this company would remove them from the market at once.

They have competition in this list from two positions. Pink Kush is listed in pharmacies in eight registration positions from five manufacturers, and Ghost Train Haze in two, from Aurora and S-LAB, whose entire output is described in a separate discussion. The remaining eight names are listed exclusively under this one entity.

Exclusivity is not a badge of quality, but a consequence of how the raw material enters the market. The entry in the register pertains to the position of a specific entity, not the strain as such, so the genetics circulating in the world under a known name may not have a counterpart in a Polish pharmacy. When such an entity withdraws a position, the name disappears from the list entirely and there is nothing to replace it.

The leading terpenes are unevenly distributed in this ten. Limonene leads in three positions, terpinolene and myrcene in two each, while nerolidol, caryophyllene, and pinene close the list with one each. We do not provide percentage shares for these names, and the reason is explained below, in the state of evidence.

Why is the word Aurora in the pharmacy list sometimes misleading?

Because it sometimes refers to the manufacturer and sometimes is part of the strain name. In the Polish register, the position is called Cannabis flos Aurora Deutschland GmbH, and the word Aurora denotes the company there. However, there is a cultivar Aurora Indica, in which the same word belongs to the name of the plant.

Aurora Indica comes from the breeding work of Nirvana Seeds and is a combination of Afghani and Northern Lights strains, described as nearly pure indica. It has nothing in common with the Canadian company except for the name. In the comparison on which this cluster is based, no pharmacy position bears such a name, so every occurrence of the word Aurora in the Polish register today denotes the manufacturer. This determination comes from the data, not an assumption made for convenience.

This same trap, however, exists in the register under another word. Sirius appears twice: once as an S-LAB position, and once as Tilray Sirius, where the Tilray part belongs to the strain’s trade name, not an appended designation of the entity. A tool that removes the company name from the label must have a clear list of such exceptions, as it cannot be determined from the text alone.

There is also a second layer of misunderstanding. The registered name of Aurora’s position does not contain the strain name at all: it carries the designation of the entity, the declared content of active substances, and a directly entered margin of ten percent in either direction. The trade name like Delahaze or Ghost Train Haze is only appended in parentheses by the pharmacy database. Therefore, the patient reads two naming systems at once, and it is these, not the plant itself, that are the source of most mistakes.

How does Aurora’s raw material differ from that of other manufacturers?

Formally, nothing. Like others, Aurora supplies pharmaceutical raw material dispensed by a doctor’s prescription in the Rpw category, with declared content and an entered margin of deviation. Differences are only visible in the list: eight out of ten names have no second supplier in our market, and one position is described differently than its namesakes.

This one position is Pink Kush. Under this name, there are eight registration positions in pharmacies from five manufacturers, and the list assigns seven of them nerolidol as the leading terpene. Aurora’s position assigns myrcene. The trade name is the same, the profile description is not, and the list does not say whether a different phenotype, a different batch, or just a different laboratory is involved. The difference is verifiable in the data, and it is this that distinguishes this raw material, not a quality declaration.

The company describes the process and standardization itself, and these sentences should be read as such. The Polish version of its website states that production meets EU-GMP standards, cultivation follows GACP principles, and testing includes purity, potency, and active ingredient content. These are manufacturer statements, not results of independent control: none of them has a certificate number or batch document, and the production subpages that the search results lead to today redirect to the homepage.

However, the registration entry itself is verifiable. It establishes the dispensing category, the form of the raw material, and the permissible deviation from the declared values, and it is this, not marketing material, that defines the limits of what a pharmacy can dispense from such a package.

What is known and what is not known about this manufacturer’s raw material?

From the documentation, we know as much as the registration entry states: the dispensing category, the form of the raw material, the declared content, and the permissible deviation. The rest comes from descriptive databases and the company’s material. No clinical study for this manufacturer’s raw material has been published, and no analysis certificates for individual batches are publicly available.

The state of description of these ten strains can be counted. Five of them are described by two Polish profile databases simultaneously, and in each of these five cases, the lists of aromatic compounds diverge. For Farm Gas and Black Jelly, the sources agree exactly on one compound, while the rest is mentioned by only one of them. The remaining five are described by one source, so there is nothing to compare them with. For four names, the descriptions do not even agree on whether the position is an indica, sativa, or hybrid.

We do not provide percentage shares for aromatic compounds, and this results from measurement, not caution. The profile database has twelve records for this manufacturer’s position. We summed the shares given in each of them: the lowest total is sixty-one, the highest ninety-one, and the median is seventy-nine. No record reaches one hundred, so there are missing points from nine to thirty-nine, about which the source says nothing. The percentage, which no one has signed the basis for calculation, reads in the drug description like the result of a laboratory measurement, although it is not, and that is why we leave only the composition.

This same database shows two more things. Electric Honeydew has two separate registration positions with different declared potency under this manufacturer, and the aromatic profile has been copied identically for them, as to the unit. Pink Kush has the opposite: two records with the same registration designation, one current and one marked as withdrawn, and the lists of compounds in them differ. Patient reports circulating on forums describe individual packages without a comparative group and without knowledge of the dose, so they are experience, not evidence for the raw material as a whole.

What adverse effects have been reported after using Aurora’s raw material?

Separately, none. There is no public compilation that would attribute reports to this manufacturer’s raw material, as safety oversight is conducted for the package with a batch number, not for the company name. The name Aurora is not a unit in this system that could be counted, and the number of its positions in the list does not change that.

Reports of adverse effects are collected for medicinal products with a batch number, not for strain names, so the following pertains to cannabis flower as a group of raw materials. The most commonly reported effects are dry mouth, red eyes, and increased heart rate. Less frequently described are dizziness upon rapid standing, daytime drowsiness, and temporary worsening of short-term memory, as well as anxiety that increases with dosage. A separate issue is medications taken concurrently, especially sedatives and those affecting coagulation: their assessment requires knowledge of the entire list of preparations, not just the description of the plant. We do not provide the frequency of these symptoms numerically, as public compilations for cannabis flower in Poland do not separate them by individual products.

A report concerning a batch purchased under this manufacturer’s label is directed where any other report goes: to the attending physician or pharmacist, and formally to the registration office, always with the batch number from the package. This number is the only data linking the symptom to a specific raw material. The strain name alone is not sufficient, as shown above, it can encompass several registration positions with different descriptions.

How does the availability of Aurora’s positions in pharmacies change?

Unevenly and without warning. The entry in the register covers the position of a specific entity, and whether the flower is on the shelf depends on the batch that has just passed release and reached the wholesaler. A name present in the list can therefore be unavailable in any pharmacy in the country for weeks.

This is evident in the descriptive data itself. One of the two positions of Pink Kush from this manufacturer is marked as withdrawn in the profile database, although the registration name remains the same, and for Electric Honeydew, two positions with different declared potency have different availability assigned. The list of strains and the list of what can be purchased in a specific week are therefore two different sets and should not be confused.

The current state of the shelf is known only to the pharmacy fulfilling the prescription, as the wholesaler changes it from day to day. The set of names that can currently be there has been gathered in a review of available strains. A separate issue is the word flower itself: a pharmacy position in the Rpw category and products from the store category of flower are subject to completely different regulations, although they end up on the same list in the search engine.

Frequently asked questions about Aurora’s raw material

Does Aurora cultivate cannabis in Poland?

No. It is listed in the Polish register as the entity responsible for the raw material, not as a manufacturer conducting cultivation on the Vistula. The parent company is Canadian, the entity on the label is German, and the public register does not provide the country of origin for a specific batch.

How many Aurora strains are in Polish pharmacies?

Ten names in a comparison covering eighty-five cultivars. This places it fifth among sixteen manufacturers present in this market, behind S-LAB, Tilray, Synoptis Pharma, and Canopy Growth.

Is Aurora Indica a strain of this manufacturer?

No. Aurora Indica is a cultivar developed by Nirvana Seeds from a combination of Afghani and Northern Lights strains and has nothing in common with the Canadian company except for the name. In the list on which we base this text, there is no pharmacy position with such a name.

Why is the strain name not in the registered name?

Because the registered name describes the raw material by the responsible entity and the declared content with a margin of deviation, not by cultivar. The trade name like Delahaze is only appended in parentheses by the pharmacy database, outside the register.

Does Aurora provide the results of its batch tests?

We did not find such documents. The Polish website of the company describes production standards and the scope of testing, but does not publish analysis certificates for individual batches, and its production subpages today redirect to the homepage.

Which Aurora strains have competition in pharmacies?

Two. Pink Kush is listed in eight registration positions from five manufacturers, and Ghost Train Haze in two, from Aurora and S-LAB. The remaining eight names have no second supplier.

Cannabis flower is a pharmaceutical raw material dispensed by a doctor’s prescription in the Rpw category. The material is for informational purposes and does not replace consultation with the attending physician or pharmacist.

Editorial text: editorial team ubucha.pl.