As the European cannabis conference season kicks off, industry experts, lawmakers, regulators and business owners are confronting a level of mainstream scrutiny that has never been higher.
From police raids in Portugal and North Macedonia to a media backlash in the United Kingdom, operators are increasingly being asked to prove the resilience of their businesses in the face of coordinated push‑back.
Europe’s largest medical cannabis market—Germany—once again sits at the heart of this debate. Delegates at this year’s ICBC Berlin heard from the country’s most informed voices to obtain a current snapshot of the thriving sector and to assess whether regulatory headwinds might divert investment toward neighbouring markets.
Here are the key take‑aways from the event.
A maturing M&A market
Over the past twelve months the most noticeable shift for investors and founders has been structural. David Hyde, an M&A specialist who spoke on a panel at ICBC, told Krautinvest ahead of the conference that the recent uptick in deal activity reflects a long‑overdue normalisation of valuations.
The “hope premium” that once inflated founder expectations has been stripped away. Today, performance‑based earn‑outs and milestone‑driven closings dominate deal architecture, a trend that is attracting both international operators and domestic consolidators.
These transactions generally fall into a few distinct categories: U.S. multi‑state operators seeking targets with established patient data; Canadian licensed producers focused on supply‑chain efficiency; and European consolidators looking for pharmacy‑partnership opportunities or similar bolt‑on assets.
Legacy players such as pharmaceutical distributors are pursuing EU‑GMP‑compliant acquisitions, while family offices and private‑equity firms are gravitating toward asset‑light, profitable companies.
Hyde notes that the most attractive targets are operators with well‑established pharmacy and prescriber relationships, extensive patient‑behaviour data and a trusted reputation.
Attorney Judith Heimbürger of Gunnercooke offered a more cautious view of the widely cited consolidation wave. She emphasized that ongoing regulatory uncertainty continues to compress valuations and encourages risk‑sharing deal structures. Consequently, companies that retain development potential amid regulatory changes are currently favoured as M&A targets.
Legal risk: the BGH ruling
The most immediate legal development discussed at ICBC was the German Federal Court of Justice ruling of 26 March 2026 (case I ZR 74/25). Heimbürger explained that the decision carries direct compliance implications for telemedicine platforms.
The court held that platforms engage in impermissible advertising when they use condition‑specific information to facilitate or trigger treatment requests to cooperating physicians. The practical outcome is an elevated risk of cease‑and‑desist letters and rising compliance costs, as operators must revise their online presence and referral processes to strip away advertising‑driven demand triggers.
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Harmonisation: the infrastructure problem
A panel on international regulatory harmonisation, held on day two of the conference, highlighted the persistent fragmentation that runs through every level of the cannabis supply chain.
Moderator Daniel Haymann, a Swiss attorney, gave a clear illustration: a producer holding full EU‑GMP certification still faces re‑qualification by German auditors; a Berlin pharmacist cannot necessarily prepare the same magistral formulation as a counterpart in Madrid; a Zurich patient has no guarantee of consistent product availability six months down the line.
The panel’s most concrete example involved an Australian cannabis shipment rejected at the German border because of a drying‑step classification discrepancy, despite a mutual recognition agreement between the two jurisdictions.
Given these challenges, the panel agreed that GACP and GMP represent the most achievable near‑term harmonisation targets. The Swiss accreditation model—where state authority underwrites third‑party certification—was cited as a possible workable path forward.
Research and the regulatory frontier
Discussions of the scientific landscape revealed an industry increasingly aware that long‑term legitimacy hinges on robust evidence generation.
Panellists pointed to the regulatory anomaly in Germany where CBN and CBG remain prohibited while high‑THC flower is legally dispensed—an inconsistency that continues to complicate the minor‑cannabinoids sector.
One panellist remarked, “It breaks my heart to hear people in Germany talk to me about how CBN and CBG is banned while they’re smoking high‑THC flower.”
The argument for industry‑funded, collaborative research—modelled partly on the psychedelics sector’s more coordinated approach to evidence‑building—found strong support.
Another speaker noted, “Unfortunately, in Canada, some of us did have tens of millions of dollars, but ended up giving it to executive salaries rather than putting it into research.”
“Without the research and education, we will not prosper as we could,” the panellist concluded.
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