Panaxia: What Happened to Israel's EU-GMP Cannabis Pioneer (2026)

For a few years around 2020, Panaxia was the Israeli cannabis company that the export story was built on. It was the first publicly listed Israeli cannabis company to hold the European manufacturing standard. It shipped some of Israel's earliest commercial medical cannabis exports, and it won a place in France's state pilot programme. By 2024 it had no manufacturing licence in Israel, and its Tel Aviv-listed company had been turned into an investment house. The business that survives makes its products in Malta. This profile sets out how that happened and what remains of it.

This profile is general information, not investment or medical advice. Corporate structures change, so check current filings before relying on any detail.

Origins: a pharma group's cannabis division

Panaxia started in 2010 as the cannabis division of the Segal family's pharmaceutical group. In 2016 it became a separate company, Panaxia Pharmaceutical Industries, founded by Dr Dadi Segal, Dr Eran Goldberg and Adv. Assi Rotbart. Segal ran it as chief executive (Wikipedia). Its plant in Lod opened in 2017.

The company called itself a pharmaceutical manufacturer and not a grower, and that positioning defined it. It made oils, sublingual tablets, suppositories and inhalation extracts rather than flower. It also produced the Axiban oil line for Rafa Laboratories, the first Israeli drug company to enter medical cannabis. It reached the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange through a merger with the listed shell Herodium Investments, which was completed in October 2019 (Hamichlol encyclopedia, "Panaxia", Hebrew).

The export peak, 2020–2021

In June 2020 the Lod plant received EU-GMP certification. Calcalist reported it as a first for a publicly listed Israeli medical cannabis company, and the second Israeli cannabis company to hold the standard, after the privately held BOL Pharma (Calcalist, 10 June 2020, Hebrew). EU-GMP is the European standard that any medicine sold in the EU has to meet, so it opened the export route that Israeli policy had promised for years. A run of firsts followed:

• November 2020: a shipment to Australia, reported by the Jerusalem Post as Israel's first commercial medical cannabis export (Jerusalem Post).
• December 2020: a first shipment reached Germany under a co-brand with the German pharma company Neuraxpharm (Jerusalem Post).
• January 2021: Panaxia was selected to supply France's state medical cannabis experiment, alongside Tilray and Aurora (Wikipedia).

For the wider picture of why these shipments stayed exceptional, and why Israel ended up a net importer, see Israel's cannabis export industry.

The retreat from Israel, 2021–2024

Panaxia's exit from its home market came in three stages.

First, it sold the distribution business. In May 2021 Panaxia agreed to sell its Israeli pharmacy and distribution operation to IM Cannabis for NIS 20 million, paid in cash and IM Cannabis shares (Globes, 3 May 2021, Hebrew). In September 2021 the listed company said it was leaving domestic activities "characterised by high competition and low profitability" to concentrate on manufacturing for export to Europe (Business of Cannabis, 8 September 2021). The buyer's later history is covered in our IM Cannabis profile.

Second, the export manufacturing moved to Malta. In May 2022 Panaxia received a Maltese licence to manufacture finished medical cannabis products to EU-GMP. The company said this was necessary because its advanced formulations could not be registered in Israel and so could not be exported from there (Business of Cannabis, 23 May 2022). The Malta plant was owned on the private side of the group, so it ended up competing for international business with the listed company's own plant in Lod.

Third, the listed company was emptied out. In December 2022 it laid off about 40% of its staff (Cannabis Magazine, 30 December 2022, Hebrew). In February 2023, Segal's private holding company, which owned 54.92% of the listed company, agreed to sell 36.74% of its shares for about NIS 11 million. At that point the listed company owed about NIS 27 million to its controlling shareholders and to Bank Mizrahi-Tefahot, its Israeli operation was losing close to NIS 30 million a year, and the landlord of the Lod plant had said it would not renew the lease when it ran out in November 2023 (Cannabis Magazine, 23 February 2023, Hebrew).

From Panaxia Labs to Barak Investment House

In July 2023 the listed company, Panaxia Labs Israel, signed to merge with Barak Investment House, a small mutual-fund manager. Barak's owners would receive 60% of the listed company, with more to come if market-value milestones were met. At the time Panaxia alone was worth about NIS 8 million on the exchange (Ynet, 25 July 2023, Hebrew).

The cannabis business was to be sold separately. The proposal put to shareholders in January 2024 was to transfer it to a company of Segal's in return for taking over about NIS 27 million of its debts. A shareholder group holding about 10% and led by Amos Luzon opposed this. They argued that the asset had never been put to a competitive sale (Calcalist, 10 January 2024, Hebrew). The merger went ahead. By June 2024 the company was filing on the exchange as Barak Investment House Ltd (formerly Panaxia Labs Israel Ltd) (TASE filing, 27 June 2024, Hebrew). Anyone who searches for Panaxia's share price today will find a fund manager.

What Panaxia holds in Israel today

Panaxia no longer makes or dispenses medical cannabis in Israel. Its Luminara pharmacy in Lod stopped dispensing cannabis in February 2023. Its manufacturing licences were cancelled in early 2024. What is left is a "non-contact" licence, which allows cannabis business activity without handling the product, issued to Panaxia Cannabis Ltd in December 2023 (Cannabiz, Hebrew). The Health Ministry's own register agrees. In the version dated 14 September 2026, the only Panaxia entry is Panaxia Cannabis Ltd, listed under the "other" licence category. There is no cultivation, manufacturing or trading-house licence (data.gov.il, cannabis licence holders, Hebrew).

There is also a legal tail. On 6 June 2024 the Central District Court certified a class action of more than NIS 12 million. The claim is that laboratory tests found less active ingredient in Panaxia products than their labels stated (Cannabis Magazine, 9 June 2024, Hebrew). Panaxia denies it. The company says the claimant relied on an outdated testing method: since January 2022 the Health Ministry has recognised a single method, and under that method its products meet specification. It said it was considering an appeal (Calcalist, 10 June 2024, Hebrew). Certification only allows the case to proceed. It is not a finding on the merits, and we have not found reporting of a final judgment.

Panaxia Malta and the Boiron option

Outside Israel, the business carries on. On 24 February 2026 the French pharmaceutical group Boiron announced an agreement with Panaxia Malta. Boiron had distributed Panaxia's medicines in France's state medical cannabis experiment. Under the new agreement it holds an option to take a majority stake in Panaxia Malta, exercisable from 2029, for which it will pay up to €3.2 million. Boiron said the money is meant to fund Panaxia's growth in the European countries that allow medical cannabis, which it put at 21 of the EU's 27 member states (Boiron press release, 24 February 2026, French).

That deal leaves Panaxia as an Israeli-founded company whose operating centre is in Malta and whose likely future owner is French. This is the pattern our companies hub describes across the sector: the strongest Israeli cannabis businesses have grown abroad, while the home market has been consolidating.

Why Panaxia matters

Panaxia is the clearest case of a structural problem. Israel built a pharmaceutical-grade cannabis manufacturer, but the plant could not sell its most advanced products from Israel and could not make the domestic market pay. So the expertise moved to an EU member state, while the listed Israeli vehicle went to an unrelated business. Its history also shows how little a brand name tells you about a product's chain of custody. To check who actually holds the licence behind a product on an Israeli pharmacy shelf, see how to compare Israel's medical cannabis producers. For other companies that went through insolvency, sale or restructuring in the same years, see Israel's cannabis shake-out. Current operators are listed in our cannabis companies directory.