How many men can be said to have lived five different professional lives, operating successfully at the highest levels of each and today, as a sprightly 80-year old, remains Jamaica’s unchallenged pharmaceutical and nutraceutical research scientist and product developer? Meet Dr Henry Isaac Lowe (‘Hi-Lo’ to friends and acquaintances) conceptualizer, founder and CEO of the Eden Gardens Group, Kingston Jamaica, but better known nowadays as the leading researcher and creator of medicinal cannabis products.
This man of multiple talents and careers began his working life as a teacher, then as lecturer and educational administrator at what was then the College of Arts, Science and Technology (CAST) or today’s University of Technology, and in a major career switch became the Technical Director of four different government ministries, which itself has to be a record in the annals of the Jamaican Civil Service. In yet another career switch Henry Lowe became the CEO of health provider Blue Cross Blue Shield before launching out as an entrepreneur to establish Eden Gardens Wellness Centre and Spa.
How did Henry Lowe end up as the leading authority in medical cannabis and the pioneer of Pharmaceutical, Nutraceutical and Cosmeceutical production in Jamaica and the Caribbean, and how in fact did he rise to become anything more than a store clerk or a factory worker? His early high school career at Calabar was undistinguished, resulting from the neglect of serious study in the pursuit of less wholesome boyhood activities. Cast out from Calabar after below par Senior Cambridge exam results, Lowe was forced like a mendicant to plead with renowned educator Wesley Powell to take him in at Excelsior to undertake 6th form studies. Powell must have discerned some latent character qualities and determination in the young Lowe for he decided to give him a ‘bligh’ after initially saying ‘no’, based on his exam performance. Like many other cast-outs, over-agers, and underachievers, Excelsior not only reclaimed Henry Lowe, it inspired him to excellence, catapulting him into the University of the West Indies to read for a degree in the Natural Sciences after a stellar performance in the Higher School Certificate examinations for which he earned a scholarship. Lowe was to return to Excelsior in later years as a science master!
Today, Henry Lowe the ‘near schoolboy truant’ heads a group of companies comprising Eden Gardens Wellness Centre and Spa; Medicanja Limited; Biotech Research and Development Institute; R &D Commercial Holdings Limited and EG Wellness Brands, all part of the Eden Gardens Group. It is the coming to fruition of a well thought-out strategy which Lowe devised 20 year ago when he retired from Blue Cross and divested the majority shares he held in that health service operation.
That strategy had two components – Wellness and Research.
THE WELLNESS FACTOR
Even while heading Blue Cross, Lowe had divined that Wellness was not merely an adjunct to the treatment of illnesses but that the management of health (wellness) and the promotion of healthy lifestyles presented the best solution to the prevention of illnesses at the start of the 21st century. That was the inspiration for the establishment of the Eden Gardens Wellness Centre and Spa which he proudly claims was, and still is, the only all purpose health and wellness facility in the entire Caribbean region where accommodation, nutrition, programmed exercise including aquatic therapy are all kept in the wellness mode.
More images of Eden Garden
Just one week before this interview with Jamaica Global Online , the Minister of Health had announced a re-branding of that ministry renaming it the Ministry of Health and Wellness. In Lowe’s words this is a ‘major, major breakthrough’ echoing the sentiments expressed in a Gleaner editorial a few days earlier under the heading The Logic of Putting Wellness into Health. The editorial suggested that if sensibly and seriously pursued, this new philosophy to health and health care could pay big dividends in peoples well-being and in enhanced economic output. With a knowing smile, Lowe declares this was no new philosophy but one he had been espousing long before even the Eden Gardens concept became a reality and in his founding of the Environmental Health Foundation.
THE RESEARCH IMPERATIVE
However it was the research component of his twin strategy that drove Henry Lowe in those early years and continues to motivate him. He had long been convinced of the therapeutic benefits of Jamaican medicinal plants including cannabis.
DID YOU KNOW THAT JAMAICA IS HOME TO 54% OF ALL THE ESTABLISHED MEDICINAL PLANTS IN THE WORLD?
Wikipedia asserts that Dr Lowe began speaking about the benefits of medical cannabis in 2007. But Lowe’s interest in Jamaica’s medicinal plants dates back almost 30 years before that when he wrote his doctoral thesis on Examining the Structures and Activity Relationship of Some Cannibinoids in Ganja. In pioneering research into medical cannabis as the centrepiece of his research strategy for the Eden Gardens Group, Lowe was merely returning to his original research roots rather than cashing in on a new fad. Early in that process Lowe recognized that the real value added in medical cannabis was not in its cultivation but in the development of secondary and tertiary products –the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and the cosmeceutical products. He is quick to point out that he has never been interested in growing cannabis and confidently asserts that within the next two years as more and more countries legalize ‘the weed’ everybody will become growers leading to a drop in demand for the primary product.
Medicanja
In establishing Medicanja, Lowe’s plan was to provide a vehicle whereby persons interested in investing in the industry could do so through an Initial Public Offer (IPO). To date that has not materialized because in his words ‘ the banks shut me down.’ But Lowe is determined not to give up and has since registered Medicanja in Canada and he plans to launch the IPO there. Lowe tells Jamaica Global Online that he is keen to open up opportunities for Jamaicans in the diaspora to participate in the medical cannabis industry and is encouraging Jamaicans particularly in Canada to embrace the IPO when it is launched. His invitation to Jamaicans living abroad extends beyond investing in medical cannabis to an open invitation to license any or all of his products for manufacturing and distribution under their own labels and brands. In 2018, Medicanja releasd12 nutraceutical products, six of which are designed to inhibit pain. Of the others there are products:
- To reduce nausea
- For Glaucoma and intraocular pressure
- Epilepsy
- Pain caused by Multiple Sclerosis
- Mosquito repellant
All have been approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) of the USA where he has also filed for 16 patents of which 6 have been granted.
Breakthrough
Working with colleague researchers at Harvard University, Lowe excitedly predicts that before long he expects to announce a breakthrough in the development and application of what he describes as ‘drone technology’ that will take the drugs he has developed for the treatment of various forms of cancer directly to the patient’s cancer cells with no collateral damage or the debilitating after- and side- effects associated with current treatment regimes. This breakthrough technology will be applied specifically to the treatment of pancreatic cancer for which there is currently no known cure.
Will this be his most significant breakthrough? Lowe is in two minds as he basks with pride in the celebrated discovery that the Ball Moss, that unsightly parasite that grows on electric wires and familiar to all Jamaicans, had a major drug component. When extracted it has been proven to successfully treat prostate, skin and brain cancer. To date the Ball Moss product has not been commercialized, except as a neutraceutical product but is being prescribed by some doctors.
THE FUTURE
Now in his 81st year Henry Isaac Lowe remains as passionate and as energetic as ever, actively involved in all aspects of the Group’s operations, but more directly in research, spending one half of his time in Harvard labs and the other half at his Kingston base. Inevitably however, thoughts of succession intrude and Lowe is not afraid to express disappointment that his son David has shown no inclination to enter the business, pursuing his own career in another corporate Jamaican entity. He unabashedly declares that if David were to come in and take over it would make him very happy.
Images of awards and achievements by Dr. Lowe
In the meantime he is confident in the team he now has in place and has special praise for Dr Ayesha Jones who heads the Biotech Research and Development operations which are located on the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies. Where the talent gap now lies is in the Group’s commercial operations for which he is actively seeking a CEO.
And as Lowe pursues his short to mid-term strategy of focusing on the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical research and development, he does not rule out the option of selling off all or portions of the Group. Readers may reasonably speculate ‘could there be yet another career for Henry Lowe?’
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