Nic Easley, chief executive officer at Comprehensive Cannabis Consulting (3C), delivered the keynote address at the first annual Cannabis Labs Conference, co-located with Pittcon. Easley begins with a discussion of the 2014 milestone where Colorado and Washington legalized recreational cannabis, opening the floodgates for a diverse range of products and business opportunities in quality and safety testing. With members of his team sitting on the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s Pesticide working group, they are working with industry leaders and regulators to comprehensively write the standards. “The industry gets regulated in 2014 in Colorado with a total of $2.7 billion in sales in the first year of the industry’s history,” says Easley. “We have this giant influx of business, but without process validation, good agricultural practices and proper SOPs, each state is left to fend for themselves to write regulations.”
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Nic Easley Delivers Keynote at Cannabis Labs Conference
Nic Easley, chief executive officer at Comprehensive Cannabis Consulting (3C), delivered the keynote address at the first annual Cannabis Labs Conference, co-located with Pittcon. Easley set the tone of the conference early on by identifying safety and quality concerns in the current cannabis marketplace. “We can choose to do business as usual or we can create a new model with outside industry expertise to help guide this industry forward responsibly,” says Easley. Noting the existing comprehensive standards in food and agriculture, Easley emphasized the value of the Cannabis Labs Conference in bringing that expertise to the cannabis space. “We have the guidance and expertise in this room alone to help move the cannabis industry forward out of the closet and into the sunlight,” adds Easley.
Researching Cannabis Genetics: A Q&A with CJ Schwartz, Ph.D.
Studying cannabis genetics is a convoluted issue. Strain classification, medicinal effects and plant breeding are particular areas in the science of cannabis that still require heavy research. Marigene, a company researching cannabis genetics, is currently working with universities and research institutes to help map the cannabis genome and catalog genetic variation.
According to CJ Schwartz, Ph.D., chief executive officer and founder of Marigene, their mission is to “to classify, certify, and improve cannabis.” After studying genetics and cellular biology at the University of Minnesota, Schwartz received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin. His research in the past decade has focused on genetic variations that control flowering time, discovering the expression of a gene called Flowering Locus T leads to differential flowering time of plants and is dependent on their native locations. We sat down with Schwartz to learn more about his research and collaborative efforts.
Cannabis Industry Journal: Why are you researching mapping the cannabis genome?
CJ Schwartz, Ph.D: We seek to identify the genetic differences among cannabis strains and the genes responsible for these differences. Genetic differences are what cause different strains to have different effects. DNA allows reproducibility, consistency, and transparency for your cannabis strains.
The more information we gather about cannabis genetics, the more tools we have available to create tailored strains. Cannabis is a targeted compound. It interacts with a very specific system in the human body, similar to hormones, such as insulin. Understanding the cannabis genome will help bring legitimacy and integrity to cannabis products, and allow us to better understand how chemicals from cannabis interact with the human brain. Genetic identification can provide a method of certification to more comprehensively describe plant material.
CIJ: How did you get involved in cannabis research?
Schwartz: My interest in cannabis guided my research career. Cannabis may not be a cure-all, but it has significant and measurable medicinal effects for many patients.
To allow true development of cannabis products, we need more science! Our genetic analysis is required for normalization and acceptance of cannabis products, but also essential for future breeding efforts to develop better and more useful plants.
Our sister company, Hempgene, is applying all of the same technology and techniques for hemp research. One focus of Hempgene is to manipulate flowering time in select hemp cultivars so that they mature at the appropriate time in different environments.
CIJ: What do you hope to accomplish with your research?
Schwartz: We can develop or stabilize a plant that produces a very specific chemical profile for a specific condition, such as seizures, nausea or pain. By breeding plants tailored to a patient’s specific ailment, a patient can receive exactly the medicine that they need and minimize negative side effects.
The current term describing the interaction of cannabis compounds is called the entourage effect. Interactions among compounds can be additive or synergistic. The entourage effect describes synergistic effects, where small amounts of compound A (e.g. Myrcene) vastly increase the effects of compound B (e.g. THC). Instead of flooding one’s body with an excessive amount of chemicals to get a non-specific effect, cannabis plants can be bred to produce a very specific effect.
Currently our goal is to catalog the natural genetic variation of cannabis, and to identify DNA changes that affect a trait of interest. Once superior variants of a gene are identified, those variants can be combined, by marker-assisted breeding, to produce new combinations of genes. How different cannabis chemicals interact to produce a desired effect, and how different human genetics influence the efficacy of those chemicals should be the ultimate goal of medical marijuana research.
We are working closely with academic institutions and chemical testing labs to gather data for establishing correlations between specific cannabis strains and desirable chemical profiles. Our closest collaborator, Dr. Nolan Kane at UC-Boulder, is working to complete the Cannabis genomic sequence and generate the first high- resolution cannabis genetic map.
We are currently accepting samples and we produce a report in roughly two to three months. For one sequencing run, we identify 125 million pieces of DNA that are 100 base pairs long. We get so much information so there is a considerable time commitment.
Amanda Rigdon to Offer Guidance on Method Validation at Cannabis Labs Conference
With multiple states now requiring third-party certification as part of licensing cannabis laboratories, there is a large role for laboratory accreditation in the cannabis industry. Using method validation can prove that your data is reproducible and that you have robust methods for sample preparation and calibration. All of these tools are instrumental in getting a laboratory accredited.
Amanda Rigdon, associate marketing manager for gas chromatography columns at Restek, Inc., will deliver a presentation, Opportunities and Challenges for Method Validation in the Evolving Cannabis Industry, at the first annual Cannabis Labs Conference taking place this March 9th in Atlanta, Georgia. The Cannabis Labs Conference will be co-located with the third annual Food Labs Conference and the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy (Pittcon) at the Georgia World Congress Center.
In her presentation, Rigdon will discuss established validation guidelines from a variety of regulatory bodies. “Method validation is absolutely critical to the cannabis industry,” she says. “Accurate test results not only help to protect consumers, but because of the high dollar value of cannabis products, accurate results can also protect producers from false positives, and laboratories in backing up their results.” She will also be sharing actual validation data from a number of cannabis analytical methods.
Scott Radcliffe, technical support scientist at Romer Labs, Inc., will share his validation methods of immunoassays for the detection of pathogens and mycotoxins in cannabis. He will include a discussion of specific rapid pathogen detection methods for Salmonella and E. coli O157 species. This will cover their small-scale validation studies with partner labs in Michigan and Washington for immunoassays.
Stephen Goldner, Esq, founder of Pinnacle Laboratories, will discuss how cannabis labs can apply FDA lab practices with recommendations for short and long term management implementation. Goldner’s presentation will include a discussion of preparation for FDA involvement in sate regulatory systems.
Beyond validation methods in laboratories, the Cannabis Labs Conference will feature several presentations on ISO/IEC 17025:2005 compliance, the need for standardization, seed-to-sale traceability, FDA best lab practices and cannabis quality. Nic Easley, chief executive officer of Comprehensive Cannabis Consulting (3C), will deliver the keynote presentation on the role of quality assurance in the cannabis industry.
Avoiding Recalls: Preparing for the What-Ifs
Recalls are a necessary part of our lives, and they occur quite often. There are hundreds of food recalls performed each year. Now we are experiencing recalls in the cannabis industry. It is important to keep in mind that the primary objective of performing a recall is to protect consumer safety.
Welcome to a whole new game!
The Scoop:
A recall occurs to remove defective or potentially harmful products from the marketplace.
Recalls can be expensive and stigmatizing. Companies involved are usually highly motivated to remedy the issue and recover as quickly as possible. It is in the producer’s best interest to do everything in their power to maintain and regain patient & customer confidence and brand trust as soon as possible.
In the United States, food recalls are typically generated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), or by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) through the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). Food manufacturers regularly perform mock recalls and, when needed, perform voluntary recalls of possibly contaminated product. Recently, listeria has become a major concern for contamination in the food industry and as a result, many companies are preparing themselves for prevention strategies.
As cannabis is still federally illegal, the FDA does not perform cannabis recalls. As a result, we are seeing local health departments and the state departments of agriculture getting involved in cannabis recalls. Recent recalls are voluntary and are related to potentially dangerous pesticide residue on flower, concentrates and infused products. Colorado has come into the spotlight recently for businesses performing a number of voluntary recalls, in the interest of protecting consumer safety. This January, a recall included “individual units of marijuana concentrates that are used for vaporizing” testing positive for Imidacloprid, Myclobutanil, Etoxazole and/or Avermectin, which are all pesticides determined by the Colorado Department of Agriculture as not usable on cannabis.
How do we know there is a problem?
- A manufacturer discovers a problem
- Inspectors reveal a potential issue
- A product fails a test carried out by a licensed laboratory
- A state health department may be alerted to an issue
Preparing for the “What- Ifs”
- What is your crisis management strategy?
- How will your team communicate the issue with regulators?
- What is the protocol to recover or destroy recalled product?
- What is the communication plan with purveyors & consumers?
- What new structures will be in place to prevent future issues?
How do we avoid a Recall?
Manufacturers and cultivators endeavor to prevent issues in the first place. Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) plans are used to ensure quality and safety during the production process. Mistakes can occur. It is ultimately the manufacturer’s responsibility to remove any possibly contaminated product from the market quickly and before potential damage is incurred.
As we pioneer the cannabis industry, it is important to be as proactive as possible at every step of the supply chain, from seed to the sale of cannabis: Cultivating, trimming, curing, extracting, infusing, producing, packaging, shipping, receiving, storing and selling are all points where safety measures should be in place.
Prevention Rules!
How is your team doing with the following?
- GAP, GMP & HACCP plans to ensure quality product
- Testing, TESTING, Testing- to confirm safety of your goods
- Requiring strict & tested operating procedures from your suppliers
- Internal quality reviews
- Training and Accountability
Our desire is that you do not ever need to recover from a crisis, but mistakes happen. They create a learning opportunity for us to make a higher quality product, to strengthen our procedures and to show our consumers that we are committed to excellence.
The Great Green North: Canada vs. US in Cannabis Regulations
A lot has been changing quickly in the world of cannabis across North America. While international drug treaties sit back and watch in horror, cannabis and cannabis-infused products have been popping up in households across Canada, on retail shelves and in private delivery services across the US. How each jurisdiction in North America accepts and regulates (or draws a blind eye) to the sale of cannabis is different depending on where you are located. Here are a few key distinctions between the current Canadian and US regulatory approaches to marijuana.
In Canada, cannabis is regulated at the federal level by Health Canada through the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations, (MMPR). The MMPR allows persons to obtain dried cannabis for their own personal medical purposes or for another person for whom they are responsible. To obtain dried cannabis, a person must obtain a medical document from a physician, or nurse practitioner to register as a client with a licensed producer of their choosing. After registering as a client, they are able to order dried cannabis and possess up to a maximum of 150 grams at any one time, depending on the recommendation of their physician. More recently, in 2015, regulations allow the distribution of not only the dried form of cannabis but also their extracted forms.
In the US, at the federal level, cannabis is still 100% illegal. Public statements from the federal administration dictate that they steadfastly oppose legalization of cannabis and other drugs. They are concerned that legalization would increase the availability and use of illicit drugs, and pose significant health and safety risks to all Americans, particularly young people. At the state level, legalization laws are rapidly changing. The office of National Drug Control Policy lists 23 states (a rising number) and Washington DC that have passed laws allowing cannabis to be smoked for a variety of medical conditions. The state laws do not change federal regulation. Many local governments are creating zoning and other restrictions that prohibit dispensaries from operating in their communities. That being said, voters in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington state support legalizing the sale and distribution of cannabis to adults over 21. There are many differences in the regulation of marijuana within each state, municipality and within the country itself.
Internationally, Canada has a platinum reputation for delivering and regulating quality consumer products. Within the Canadian cannabis industry, many feel Health Canada’s regulatory regime is inaccessible, restricts production to large corporations and limits distribution channels. The average start up cost of even a small licensed facility is around $4-5M CAD. On top of the financial costs, production companies have to compete with the other 2000 or so applicants who have been waiting, in some cases up to two years, to hear back from Health Canada if they will succeed in the licencing application process. In response, Canada has seen many tolerances made to allow dispensaries to distribute marijuana at the municipal level, even though not allowed as per regulation.
Many Canadian dispensaries operate with professional policies and procedures including providing customers with access ID cards and offering physician consults. Vancouver became the first city in Canada to license and regulate marijuana dispensaries. The number of licenses within the city exceeds both Tim Hortons and Starbucks Franchises combined. Many dispensaries provide bar and café settings for people to enjoy a “bong shot” or café au lait infused with cannabis. Licensing dispensaries has become a great financial resource for the city, charging $30,000 CAD per licence. Vancouver’s dispensaries have been a topic of debate across all levels of government. The Health Minister asked Vancouver to shut the dispensaries down, while other municipalities have started to expand the same concept. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canada’s federal police force, has started raiding various dispensary locations. Part of the new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau’s, political platform and claim to fame is to legalize cannabis recreationally across Canada. How the framework will unfold is still in the works and subject not only to local jurisdictional reform but also to international negotiations.
Editor’s Note: Eurofins-Experchem has helped submit over 150 MMPR applications to Health Canada and continues to work with 10 of the 27 licensed MMPR producers in Canada. Their regulatory affairs division has started working with companies applying to produce and distribute cannabis in those states, which are new to its sale and distribution. They offer services include writing SOPs, training staff and performing mock inspection audits.
Cannabis Research in Israel: Meeting with Dr. Raphael Mechoulam
I had the pleasure of visiting the famous Dr. Raphael Mechoulam last month at his Hebrew University office just outside of Jerusalem, Israel. For those who may not have heard of him, Dr. Mechoulam is essentially the godfather of the endocannabinoid system. He is best known for his work in isolating and totally synthesizing delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Dr. Mechoulam is one of the leading recognized scientists in our field. Much of his work is focused on the nervous system, specifically how various acids, and particularly cannabinoids, bind to the nervous system and thus their effect on humans.
Dr. Mechoulam is a humble man whose energetic demeanor belies his age. He speaks six languages and continues working regularly even at the age of 86. His mind is as sharp as any 25 year old and, while our meeting was short, it lacked nothing in content.
His discoveries in cannabis have not been his only accolades and only represent about a third of his work in his accomplished life time. He has a vast number of papers and studies related to fatty and amino acids and their effect on the brain. The underlying principles of all of Dr. Mechoulam’s areas of study are similar and he has equally distinguished himself in these fields as he has in the realm of cannabis. Because of it’s taboo nature and the limited amount of sophisticated scientific research that cannabis has been subject to, Dr. Mechoulam is more widely recognized for this specific focus.
During our brief hour-long meeting, we discussed the impact of cannabinoids on cancer patients and bone marrow transplants, his cannabis research on schizophrenia as well as the role cannabis plays in diabetes patients – all topics on which he has volumes of published research but stressed the point that more research needs to be done; we have only scratched the surface.
Dr. Mechoulam is an inquisitive man who is always investigating, digging, and striving to understand more about the effects of cannabis, fatty, and amino acids on the brain. When asked what charge the cannabis and medical industries need to pursue, he stressed the need for more scientific studies to investigate the impact of cannabis not just on the brain but the entire human body, as well as the need for grants to help promote those studies. Dr. Mechoulam specifically stressed the importance that these studies employ scientific vigor in a responsible and legal manner.
He is man of high moral ground, inquisitive nature, and a thorough investigator. I am privileged and humbled to have met him and heed his call to bring sophisticated and responsible scientific studies to the forefront of the Cannabis Green Rush.
Ask the Expert Series: Straight Talk on Safety, Defense and Security with Bruce Lesniak
This is the first part of a series dedicated to understanding more about defense, security and safety as they relate to the cannabis industry, the importance of having standards and some tips for cannabis business plans. Over the next few weeks, we will hear from multiple industry pioneers discussing those topics and offering practical solutions for problems that many cannabis businesses face daily.
Inconsistent laws across multiple states created a fragmented network of regulations for cannabis. Some third parties are filling the gaps between the industry standards and state regulations. The Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED) and the Washington Liquor and Cannabis Board’s i-502 rule provide guidance on regulations surrounding packaging and labeling, advertising, pesticide use, retail and other areas.
Still there are many opportunities to fill the gaps. The Foundation of Cannabis Unified Standards (FOCUS), is an independent non-profit founded to develop some consistency in standards governing public health, consumer safety and the environment. In cultivation, the third party certification, Clean Green Certified, works to provide some guidance for growing cannabis organically based on USDA organic standards. For laboratories, Washington’s regulations provide some guidance, but organizations like FOCUS, the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA) and the Cannabis Safety Institute seek to fill the gaps in laboratory standards along with the ISO 17025 requirements.
Security and defense is one particular area of the cannabis industry that still needs a benchmark for businesses to follow. In this series, we sit down to discuss security, defense and safety with Bruce Lesniak, president of the Food Safety and Defense Institute and member of the oversight committee for the establishment of standards in the cannabis industry in conjunction with FOCUS.
Cannabis Industry Journal: What changes do you see coming to the cannabis industry related to product safety, defense and security?
Bruce Lesniak: As in every industry that provides a public consumable product, the primary objective is to protect the consumer by providing products that are consistently safe. The largest change coming to the cannabis industry will be the implementation of enforceable, nationally uniform standards across all states and all product lines. I believe that the standards and regulations developed for the cannabis industry will mirror those of the food industry. Companies are already busy working to develop this uniform standard, one such group is FOCUS. Founded by Lezli Engelking, FOCUS works with diverse professionals from regulatory, quality assurance, medical, law enforcement, business, research, and the government officials, medical and research professionals along with subject matter experts from numerous business disciplines across the industry to develop impartial, comprehensive, cannabis specific standards that will be presented for adoption by state and federal governing bodies. Lezli summarizes the FOCUS Mission as “ To protect public health, consumer safety, and safeguard the environment by promoting integrity within the cannabis industry.” Look for more on this in our next Ask the Expert update, on CannabisIndustryJournal.com or you can contact Lezli Engelking at FOCUS here: 866-359-3557 x101.
This series will highlight important issues involving security, defense and safety in the cannabis industry. Next week, Bruce, along with cannabis security professional, Tony Gallo of Sapphire Protection, will provide some advice on what companies can do to improve their master business plan. Stay tuned for next week’s Part II of Ask the Expert: Straight Talk on Safety, Defense and Security with Bruce Lesniak.
Tech Startup Seeking Investors for Cannabis Data Research Tool
Innovations in technology used for cannabis research have the potential to lead to major breakthroughs and discoveries for the plant’s various applications. Software and information technologies are particularly useful for sorting through the tremendous amount of data required in medical research and the cannabis industry. Tímea Polgár, founder of CannaData, worked in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries previously as a molecular biologist and computational chemist.
Her background in informatics, pharmaceutical research, molecular biology and chemistry brings her to the cannabis industry to study the plant in an herbal medicine context using high-tech informatics. Polgár, originally from Hungary, received her PhD from Budapest University of Technology and Engineering in pharmaceutical drug discovery. She has worked as a senior research scientist at Gedeon Richter in Budapest and as a senior molecular modeler at Servier, Inc. in Paris, France. After leaving the pharmaceutical industry, she began working at a startup called Chemaxon, a chemistry informatics company working on scientific business development. Polgár has worked for years in scientific business development, leveraging technology and knowledge to businesses, which brought her to work across multiple disciplines.
CannaData is essentially a software tool used to gather information on strain genetics, chemical components of different strains, molecular mechanisms of different strains and the medicinal effects. According to Polgár, the company plans to build a continuously growing data repository in conjunction with computational modeling and research in determining entourage effects to pinpoint how active chemical agents in cannabis interact. The tool will help scientists find areas of the plant that need more studying and areas that are inert. In addition to the database, CannaData will provide scientific analysis of data from seed banks, laboratories, clinics and other businesses collecting data in the cannabis industry.
Polgár’s organization is currently seeking investors to launch the project in hopes of connecting the cannabis industry, herbal medicine and computational chemistry for more accurate scientific research and understanding of the plant. According to Polgár, research and development of disease-fighting drugs has long had a narrow-minded approach. “Herbal medicine is very complex with numerous active chemical components. Recent technological and computational advancements have made it possible to study these chemical network interactions,” says Polgár. “The cannabis industry could provide a pioneering route for the novel concept of combining herbal medicinal research with information technology, furthering our molecular understanding of the benefits of cannabis.”
Polgár believes that this type of research has the ability to help support standardization and quality control in the cultivation of cannabis. “We are linking technologies to herbal medicine and cannabis where there is a huge need to manage, extract and analyze data,” says Polgár. “Today, there are computational technologies that can manage this quantity of information required to model and understand herbal molecular mechanisms and we will be the first ones to do so on a commercial level.”
Polgár’s organization is seeking investors looking to innovate in the areas of life sciences, pharmaceutical research and software development. Through bringing broad information technological solutions from research to the cannabis industry, CannaData hopes to serve analytical laboratories with chemical informatics software services. Ultimately, this project will serve the cannabis industry by analyzing data on strain genetics and known chemical profiles of cannabis, furthering scientific research on cannabis.
What to Consider When Selecting a Laboratory
There are many factors to consider when selecting a third party analytical laboratory:
- Why are you testing?
- Does a governing body require it?
- Are you testing to meet compliance with industry trends?
- Are you testing as supplemental protection to an in house laboratory operation?
- Are your results being used to help you market your product?
- Are the results being utilized for internal R&D?
- What are you looking to get out of testing?
Perhaps it is a combination of all these things. Regardless, whomever you contract with for whatever reasons, it is important to understand what you are getting, know what you are entitled to, understand your results, and understand where you and your company remain vulnerable. You must also be prepared with a plan to handle adverse results. Testing at a third party analytical contract laboratory does not mean they assume all of your product’s or company’s liability, regardless of the lab’s reputation.
Ask your third party laboratory about any accreditations, certifications, and licenses that the lab should be accredited and/or certified for. Each state has different certifications and licensing requirements; make sure the entity you are using is licensed or certified for the services you need. Additionally, there is an accreditation called International Standards Organization (ISO) 17025 that is the pinnacle of third party laboratory accreditation. ISO 17025 is a set of protocols that your third party lab should follow to do everything it can to ensure your data is accurate and produced with reliable standards, control samples, matrix control samples and proficiency tests to verify the accuracy of the lab’s employees and methods, among a number of other criteria included in the standard. A number of different entities offer accreditation to ISO 17025 but it is important that the the accrediting body is also accredited to their ISO standard. Simply buying ISO 17025 compliant materials or standards does not mean that the vendor service or product is accredited to ISO 17025. Cannabis laboratories are just starting to implement and build systems around ISO 17025 but it has been prevalent in the third party lab business in many industries for decades and should be applied to the cannabis industry.
Visit your lab and understand their background and experience. Start by requesting a tour of the laboratory you choose; you want to know how things look behind the scenes. Is the lab orderly and doing its best to protect sample integrity? There may be a lot of things going on in the laboratory and it may look chaotic but it should be relatively clean. This prevents contamination and sample mix-ups. Further your relationship with your laboratory by understanding the laboratory’s experience and getting to know your laboratory staff. Consider the lab staff as part of your extended team, they are there to help you and help bring your product to market. The more they understand your goals, the more they can help.
Understand your lab’s history and background: Have they worked with products and/or analytes similar to yours? Have they worked with your sample matrix or one similar to it before? Their prior knowledge and laboratory experience, as it relates to your product, will help provide accurate data and navigate complex matrices.
Most importantly, a laboratory should be willing to release the data packet that is used to generate test results to the client. Releasing this data does not divulge any proprietary information of the lab. It is the laboratory’s job to provide you with the data upon request. It is important to note, looking at your raw data is not the same as looking at the laboratory method, also known as a work instruction or operating procedure. The lab most likely won’t give you the method as those are typically trade secrets, but there is no reason not to share with you the chromatography that the HPLC, GC, GC/MS, or LC/MS generated. This will demonstrate the lab’s sound analytical data and increase your confidence in the analysis you are receiving. When you pay for the results, you are also paying for your data and if your laboratory is not releasing that information to you at your request, you should be skeptical. This data needs to be able to stand up to audits and legal action.
Finally, confidentiality: your data is your data. Yes, you may have to report results to a governing body, but your laboratory should not be sharing your name and your data with anyone but your authorized list of contacts without your permission. They should not even disclose that you are their client without your prior authorization. Confidentiality is not just applicable to a few key employees at the laboratory, it is pertinent to everyone from the sample pickup driver, if you have one, to the chemists and upper level management.
Understanding your contract laboratory’s certifications, licenses, and accreditations, requesting and receiving raw data packages, and ensuring that you feel comfortable with the laboratory, its staff and their practices are key elements to ensuring a successful relationship with your laboratory.