Dunbar Pharma Supplies API for UK’s First Plant-Derived Dronabinol Oral Spray

ATHLONE, Ireland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 1, 2026--

Dunbar Pharmaceuticals(“Dunbar Pharma” or “the Company”), Ireland's first EU GMP-certified manufacturer of plant-derived cannabinoid active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), today confirmed that oral sprays prepared from its WaterClear THC™ dronabinol are now available to UK specialist prescribers through IPS Pharma, an MHRA-licensed Specials manufacturer.

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The oral sprays, manufactured by IPS Pharma at its facility in Surrey, join the dronabinol capsulesintroduced to the UKinAugust. Both use Dunbar Pharma’s WaterClear THC™ dronabinol API, manufactured at its facility in the Irish Midlands, under EU GMP certification and supplied under controlled-drug licenses in Ireland and the UK.

“The UK’s first plant-derived dronabinol oral spray is an important milestone for Dunbar,” said Leah Fletcher, co-founder and CEO of Dunbar Pharma. “With oral sprays alongside capsules, IPS Pharma is using our dronabinol API in a number of finished formats. That demonstrates the versatility of a defined, pharmaceutical-grade ingredient as we plan to expand production in 2027.”

Dunbar Pharma plans to expand manufacturing capacity at its Athlone site in 2027 and has further plant-derived active substances in development. The company is working with partners on additional formulations for Europe, focusing initially on the UK and German markets.

Dunbar Pharma is a High Potential Start-Up (HPSU) client of Enterprise Ireland, which has invested in the company alongside private Irish investors. Enterprise Ireland is the Irish Government agency responsible for the development and growth of Irish enterprises in world markets, and its backing has supported the build-out of the Company's GMP manufacturing operation in Athlone and its entry into the German and UK markets. Dunbar Pharma employs 25 people in Ireland and was named Emerging Company of the Year at the 2026 BioPharmaChem Impact Awards.

About Dunbar Pharmaceuticals

Dunbar Pharmaceuticals (Mercury Rising Ltd.) is a privately owned Irish pharmaceutical manufacturer of plant-derived cannabinoid active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). The company manufactures difficult-to-make, pharmaceutical-grade APIs, including plant-derived dronabinol, to recognised pharmacopoeia standards for regulated pharmaceutical markets, including Germany and the UK.

Built from the ground up as a pharmaceutical manufacturer on Ireland's world-class pharma platform, Dunbar Pharma operates under the oversight of the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), with validated processes and full batch traceability supporting dependable supply to licensed partners across Europe.

Dunbar Pharma was founded on a simple observation: medical use of cannabinoids was growing worldwide, but the pharmaceutical infrastructure behind it had not kept pace. The company is closing that gap, building the manufacturing base for plant-derived cannabinoid medicines in Europe by combining EU GMP manufacturing, pharmaceutical quality standards and reliable supply for healthcare partners and patients. The company has been recognised for its growth and innovation, including Emerging Company of the Year at the BioPharmaChem Impact Awards 2026, Product & Manufacturing Start-Up of the Year at the National Start-Up Awards 2025, and the Ambition & Growth Award at the Local Enterprise Office Awards 2026. Keep up to date on activity from Dunbar Pharma on LinkedIn.

Notes to Editor

Dunbar Pharmaceuticals (Mercury Rising Ltd.) is an Irish GMP manufacturer based in Athlone, Ireland. GMP Certificate: 35486/ASR13213/000001; ASR Certificate: ASR13213/000001 — verifiable on the EudraGMDP public register.

Dronabinol is the INN (international non-proprietary name) for delta-9-THC in purified pharmaceutical form, prescribed internationally for decades in regulated prescription medicines for specific indications.

In the UK, “Specials” are unlicensed medicines manufactured or supplied to meet the individual clinical needs of a specific patient where no suitable licensed alternative is available. They are prescribed by clinicians and produced by licensed Specials manufacturers, such as IPS Pharma, under MHRA oversight.

Dunbar's dronabinol is manufactured exclusively for pharmaceutical use, not consumer or wellness products.

Dunbar Pharmaceuticals

ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) — Glaciers in Switzerland – the home to the most in the Alps – lost 5.5% of their ice volume this year, the second-biggest percentage drop on record due to heat waves and low winter snowfall, experts report.

“Alpine glaciers have no chance of surviving in the long term under such conditions,” the GLAMOS Swiss glacier monitoring service and Swiss Academy of Sciences said in a statement released Thursday.

The trend has worsened in recent years: Over the past five years alone, the volume of ice in Switzerland has declined by nearly a fifth, the experts say.

The report testifies to the latest concerns that global warming is wreaking havoc on Europe, the world’s fastest-warming continent.

“The warming that we are experiencing now can be attributed 100% to anthropogenic climate change. It’s as simple as that,” said Matthias Huss, who heads GLAMOS. “Without human emissions or fossil fuels we wouldn’t have any warming at the moment.”

The record retreat of glacier ice in Switzerland came in 2022, when summer heat, low winter snowfall and an unusual smattering of reddish dust blown in from the Sahara darkened the glaciers and caused them to absorb more heat.

Huss said the snow cover in winter was important for two reasons.

“On the one hand, it protects the bare ice from melting. The longer you have snow, the longer you avoid the loss of old ice,” said Huss in an interview at the Federal Polytechnic Institute ETHZ, where he is a glaciology professor.

“On the other hand, the snow is important also for generating new food for the glacier. The more snow you have, the higher the potential to keep some of the snow at high elevation and to form new ice,” Huss added.

The great thaw in Europe’s legendary Alps is not alone: Experts say global warming helped to destabilize a Himalayan slope that collapsed in August and unleashed catastrophic and deadly flooding across Nepal. Satellites have shown vast shrinkage of glaciers in places like Greenland and Antarctica over the last half-century or so.

In Switzerland, in absolute terms, volume lost has been less than that in 2003, but the percentage decline this year is greater. That’s because the total volume today is roughly a third of that 23 years ago. Back then, the relative loss was 3.5% of total ice volume in Swiss glaciers.

Such accelerated ice melt has had an impact in Switzerland — the loss of 2.2 trillion liters (581 billion gallons) from July to September amounts to four times the annual consumption of water in the country of about 9.1 million people. Switzerland gets more than half of its electricity from hydropower.

But the impact of accelerated glacier melt ripples far beyond: Switzerland is the water tower of Europe, and feeds some of the continent’s most important rivers: The Danube, Po, Rhine and Rhone.

The experts say the “extreme melting” faced by Switzerland’s glaciers this year included a decline in the average thickness of individual glaciers between 2-1/2 to 4 meters (about 8-13 feet) — and a reduction of up 10 meters (33 feet) on the tongue of some glaciers.

The expert teams have fanned out to assess runoff and crevices caused by the running water through the glaciers, in part by dumping red dye into the streams to track the water flows.

The Allalin, Clarident, Rhone and Aletsch glaciers — Aletsch being the largest in the Alps — were among the glaciers to experience their biggest melt on record this year.

FILE — The Rhone Glacier near Goms, Switzerland, is partially covered with sheets as Matthias Huss, head of the Swiss glacier monitoring group GLAMOS, stands nearby, on June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)

FILE — People enjoy the view at the Aletsch Glacier near Goms, Switzerland, June 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)

FILE — Swiss Federal Institute of Technology glaciologist and head of the Swiss measurement network 'Glamos', Matthias Huss, center, and his assistants arrive at the Rhone glacier near Goms, Switzerland, June 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

FILE - ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) glaciologist and head of the Swiss measurement network Glamos, Matthias Huss, checks the thickness of the Rhone Glacier near Goms, Switzerland, June 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)

FILE — A lake of meltwater has formed on the tongue of the Rhone glacier near Goms, Switzerland, June 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)