Medicinal cannabis factory set to create up to 100 jobs in the Scottish Borders
Last updated 15th Dec 2025
Up to 100 jobs could be created with the opening of a new medicinal cannabis factory in the Scottish Borders.
Breathe Life Sciences, which was founded in Australia in 2018, has been awarded almost £850,000 from South of Scotland Enterprise (SOSE) to create a manufacturing and distribution centre at a top secret location in the region.
It comes as demand for medicinal cannabis products is predicted to soar over the next four years.
There are already around 80,000 active patients in the UK, buying around £250 million worth of products this year alone, to help treat conditions such as chronic pain, epilepsy, and PTSD, when conventional medicines don't work.
But, according to research and market forecasts, that figure is set to more than double to 190,000 patients by 2029.
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Sam Watson, CEO and founder of Breathe Life Sciences, told Greatest Hits Radio: "We fill in a gap where patients aren't receiving treatment that suits them from conventional medication, we manufacture medicines which help them with their symptoms.
"We've been looking at entering the UK market for several years and we found the entrepreneurial spirit of the Borders, and the support that we've received from Scottish Borders Council and SOSE has been absolutely phenomenal.
"That's one of the main reasons that we feel confident this is the best place in the UK to be investing and to be growing our business, and distributing to the rest of the country from here."
Today's announcement comes almost three years after another company - Hilltop Leaf - revealed it was building Scotland's first medicinal cannabis cultivation and production facility in neighbouring Dumfries and Galloway.
It's hoped the new centre will help build the South of Scotland's reputation as an innovation hub for life sciences.
But, unlike the development near Langholm, no plants will be grown at Breathe Life Sciences site in the central Borders.
"We're not growing anything," Sam explained. "We do the processing into pharmaceutical products. So, we aggregate supply from various suppliers/cultivators/ingredient manufacturers; we take those into our warehouse and then we turn those into the patient-ready products - the final dose-form medicines.
"In the next two years we hope to create up to 100 jobs, maybe more. A lot of it, on the quality side, is scientific, lab-analysis type work; there's documentation for pharmaceutical quality assurance reasons. And then, on the manufacturing side, we've got people operating automated lines that produce the products, a wide-range of skills."
Medicinal cannabis was legalised in the UK in 2018 to allow specialist doctors to hand out prescriptions, and it's hoped this latest development will help increase access to products while reducing costs.
"The UK market is growing, probably the fastest in Europe," Sam continued. "It's a big market.
"On the human side, there's a huge unmet need for patients all over the world - millions of patients in the UK aren't responding to conventional medication for chronic pain, for sleep, PTSD, stress; and the role of our business is to find alternative solutions to those issues, and cannabis is one of those products.
"In Australia, we're also manufacturing MDMA, Psilocybin; other sort of investigational drugs."
But he added: "We are investing in this region for the long run. The building that we have - it's a large site. And we've chosen that site based on our ability to expand into it over the next five to ten years.
"Initially, what we have to do is build the clean rooms, which have air quality controls; as well as the controlled drugs storage rooms. So there's a reasonable amount of infrastructure that we need to put in place to be able to do what we do, and get the licences to carry out the business (which could take between six and 12 months)."
Around 36 jobs are set to be created by the development initially.
SOSE chair Russel Griggs is welcoming the investment. He said: “We are delighted to welcome BLS, a key international life sciences company, to the South of Scotland.
“With a surge in the number of life sciences companies wanting to come to our region, the South is quickly positioning itself as a hub for innovation and growth in the emerging medicinal cannabis industry.
“BLS will bring further investment and skilled jobs, and are the latest company to recognise that the South of Scotland is a fantastic place to do innovative business.”
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