NEW YORK, July 17, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Medical Cannabis Network (MCN) announces the launch of the world’s first data driven, live cannabis suggestion tool for doctors and patients. Currently, patients looking for specific types of cannabis strains to help with their condition are reliant on information found on the web from unreliable sources. Traditionally, consumers find this information from peer reviews of other patients explaining their experience with a particular type of strain. The hope is that after trial and error, the patient would discover which strain is best for their symptoms. The problem arises in that this is still just an opinion of an individual's experience and not based on real clinical data or research. Well, those days are now over. One company located out of Long Island, New York has created what seems to be the world’s first accurate cannabis suggestion tool.
The “Cannabis Suggestion Tool” was created as a way to monetize live data related to medical cannabis in efforts to develop real world applications for medical professionals. “It has been a long time since innovation and medicine was used in conjunction with technology to create an app that has such potential for widespread use,” said John Nicolazzo, Chief Operating Officer for MCN. “In the beginning, our network focused on connecting patients with doctors and never really thought about using data to create solutions for problems in the industry, until those problems affected our operations.”
“We had to become pioneers in a sense by creating an entire network of cannabis sites that would be placed in the future markets of the industry. In a nutshell, we created 1-2 websites per each identified market, those markets included real estate, science, education, medicine, politics, marketing, advertising and over 30 other categories we identified,” said the COO. John mentioned that the struggle wasn’t necessarily in building the websites as much as it was getting consumers to them. A general trust factor about the legitimacy behind cannabis as medicine would typically hinder a patient from wanting to register with one of their web properties.
The result of MCN’s development was over 300 websites active on the web all related to cannabis. MCN currently receives on a daily basis over 400 new users and over 200 new cannabis products including data points such as pricing and the tested components of cannabis (THC, CBD, CBN, CBG, CBC, THCv and Turpentines). On average, MCN has been able to identify several new medical studies related to cannabis each month. The data collected is then compiled and filtered through what Mr. Nicolazzo is calling their “Dynamic Middle Algorithm” to create live data sharing between applications and other software systems they’ve created. John continued to explain how the cannabis suggestion app created is the beginning of a much bigger picture towards live, big data and medicine. “We are using the medical cannabis industry as our test grounds for what can potentially be the biggest breakthrough in medicine since we created the Centrifuge. The goal of MCN is to not only use the app to create new ratios or formulations of cannabis products but for other prescribed medications as well. Imagine a world of constant reporting between doctor and patient; now imagine doctors changing dosage regulations or even prescription compounding materials to create a better prescribed drug with fewer side effects working directly with the pharmaceutical companies,” said John.
Crain’s Business New York recently published an article on “Big Data” and how that data can be used to progress the health of an individual. Mount Sinai’s CEO Kenneth Davis was quoted stating, “I can see a brave new world in maybe 20 years where your iPhone is going to give us so much information in real time that we’ll be able to prevent disease in a way that we couldn’t even conceptualize today.” Mr. Nicolazzo, however, seems to think the big data development game has not only arrived, but that his team has created an app for the future of medicine.
According to MCN, the cannabis suggestion tool is proprietary to their organization laying claim to the methodology behind the algorithm and what they created as a “medical device”. John strives to use what his network created to foster relationships with the different producers being licensed here in New York. One potential producer that’s making incredible strives in the industry, is Cannabis Science Inc. In recent announcements, Cannabis Science has already started early stages of development for a line of products called “Jimi’s Cannabis Collection” which was formulated to help patients that suffer from pain, throat issues, scars, burns and skin cancer. “The relationship formed between Cannabis Science and none other than Purple Haze Properties, finally adds some stability and credibility to the medical cannabis industry from a health standpoint,” Mr. Nicolazzo stated. MCN hopes to work with each producer through the development process of new genetics while using the Cannabis Suggestion Tool to fine-tune the ratio formulation involving the different Cannabinoids in the medicine created.