Bedrocan bankruptcy threatens epilepsy patients' access to medical cannabis in the UK
The bankruptcy of Dutch firm Bedrocan puts the UK supply of Bedrolite at risk, a cannabis oil used by people with drug-resistant epilepsy. Most patients obtain it only privately, as the NHS prescribes it extremely rarely.
The bankruptcy of the Dutch company Bedrocan raises the risk that Bedrolite, a medical cannabis oil used by people with drug-resistant epilepsy, could soon disappear from the UK market. The issue is raised by Kojo Koram, professor of law and political economy at Loughborough University, who describes the case of artist Louis Petit. The NHS, the UK's National Health Service, almost never funds the drug, leaving most patients dependent on the costly private sector.
The patient's case
Louis Petit was diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy in 2016, aged 12, when medical cannabis was still illegal in the UK. As a teenager he moved to the Netherlands. In Rotterdam, doctors helped find a treatment: Bedrolite combined with the right anti-epileptic therapy slowed and eventually stopped his seizures, something his UK neurologists had previously considered impossible.
In 2022 Petit won a place at City and Guilds of London Art School. By then the government had legalised medicinal cannabis in 2018, announced in parliament by then home secretary Sajid Javid. Even so, Petit has never obtained an NHS prescription, and the drug is available to him only privately.
Private market and supply risk
Until 2025, fewer than five prescriptions for unlicensed cannabis-based products such as Bedrolite were issued across the whole NHS. In the private sector the medicine costs up to £4,000 a month. That market has grown quickly, offering remote prescriptions and 48-hour delivery.
It was initially feared that Bedrolite would stop being sold in the UK before Christmas. Last week the manufacturer Target Healthcare told families it would secure a six-month stockpile, but what follows is unclear. Petit's mother, Emma, says stock in the Netherlands would last into 2028, yet it is not available to people without NHS prescriptions.
The author urges the government to negotiate with the manufacturer to secure supply and to create a framework allowing medical cannabis to be prescribed on the NHS.
