There is an ironic twist in Clemens Fischer’s story. The 50-year-old German pharma entrepreneur made his money selling everyday health products, including IBS tablets, weight-loss shakes, and joint-pain ointments. Nothing glamorous, but very profitable. Now he is placing a huge bet, almost €400 million, on something that could change how the world treats pain, and on the way it treats cannabis.
From the Munich lab to a possible new medicine
Inside a clean lab in Munich, Fischer walks past a glass door labelled “VER-01 Process Suite.” Scientists in white coats are fine-tuning a formula called VER-01. The promise is simple and bold: relieve chronic pain without making patients feel high. That is the risky part. Turning an idea into a medicine is hard. Turning a cannabis product into a respected prescription drug is harder.
Fischer is not a typical biotech founder. He is a medical doctor and a serial entrepreneur who has built and sold several health companies. Vertanical, his Munich-based firm, is his moonshot. The company wants to make VER-01 a prescription drug, first in Europe, then globally. The goal is to deliver enough cannabinoids, with a tiny amount of THC, to ease pain while staying below levels that cause intoxication.
Why this matters
More than a billion people worldwide suffer from chronic pain, and many are pushed toward opioids. Opioids can help in the short term, but they often lead to dependence, tolerance, and overdose. Vertanical wants to offer an alternative for cases where opioids fail or where the risk is too high. The real test will be whether regulators, doctors, and insurers accept a cannabis-based medicine as legitimate and safe.
The long road through trials
Vertanical started eight years ago with a bold idea, that plant compounds long stigmatised could be refined into safe medicines. The team built slowly, with pharmacologists, chemists, clinical trial experts, and regulatory strategists. They focused on chronic low back pain, one of the most common and stubborn pain conditions.
They ran dosing studies, looked at how the drug behaves in the body, and moved step by step through Phase I and Phase II trials. In 2025, they reached a turning point. Their Phase III trial enrolled over 800 patients. VER-01 showed better pain relief than placebo, improved sleep, better day-to-day function, and no big safety issues or signs of dependence. Fischer calls this vindication, but he knows the toughest work is still ahead.
Big hurdles remain
Turning trial success into an approved prescription drug means clearing many hurdles. Vertanical must satisfy regulators, meet strict manufacturing standards, and persuade doctors and payers to trust and prescribe the drug. Global cannabis laws and public stigma are additional obstacles. In Germany, the company argues the dose is low, under intoxication thresholds, yet still therapeutic. That argument will be important for regulators worried about abuse.
Vertanical is also building its own manufacturing, so it can meet good manufacturing practice standards and control quality. Fischer plans more trials for conditions like osteoarthritis and diabetic neuropathy, aiming to broaden the drug’s use.
If it works, the prize is huge
If approved in Europe, Vertanical expects doctors to start prescribing the drug, called Exilby, for chronic low back pain. That would be a first, a cannabinoid therapy competing directly with opioids and other pain drugs in mainstream medicine. If insurers pay for it, adoption could spread fast across Europe, and then to the U.S. and other markets.
Why the world is watching
The opioid crisis left a deep wound in public health systems. There is now a real appetite for safer alternatives. A cannabis-derived prescription drug that relieves pain without addictive risk would be a breakthrough. Yet one misstep, a safety issue, a manufacturing failure, or political pushback could derail everything.
Fischer knows the risks, and the company stresses transparency and rigorous compliance. The story is powerful, a plant once shunned, now refined into a potential medicine, backed by clinical evidence and entrepreneurial grit. Whether Vertanical changes pain treatment or becomes a cautionary tale will depend on the next few years, one trial, one regulatory decision, one insurer’s choice at a time.
