1. The Market Everyone Forgot to Watch
If you’re still describing the UK medical cannabis sector as sluggish, overregulated, or too small to matter — you’re a few years out of date.
That perception once made sense. Regulation was ambiguous. Onboarding was clunky. Clinics struggled to scale. But from where we sit — powering the infrastructure beneath a large share of UK cannabis prescriptions — the story is now very different.
Script Assist now processes over 12,000 prescriptions per month, with more than £2 million in transactions flowing through the platform. And those numbers are rising rapidly.
Prescription volume is compounding at over 15% month-on-month, driven not by advertising or hype, but by patient retention, operational efficiency, and repeatable workflows.
This is no longer a sector waiting to take off. It’s scaling now — profitably, and at operational depth.
The reason few have noticed? Most of the fastest-growing operators aren’t chasing headlines. They’re building systems.
2. The Market Isn’t Evolving Because of Policy — It’s Evolving Because It Works Now
Many still assume this market’s growth depends on regulatory shifts. But the regulations haven’t changed. What has changed is far more fundamental: the operations now work.
Not long ago, clinics re-entered data manually. Pharmacies chased mismatched prescriptions. Support lines were jammed. Patients were frustrated. Nobody could scale safely.
That changed — not due to legislation, but infrastructure.
In March 2025, we surveyed several of our highest-volume clinics — each issuing over 1,000 prescriptions per month — to understand what happened after they moved to Script Assist. Here’s what they reported:
- Manual interventions fell from over 40% to under 5%
- Over 90% of prescriptions now processed within 48 hours
- Support call volume dropped by 80%
- Clinics reclaimed 40+ hours of admin time per week
- Script-writing capacity increased by over 70% — with no additional headcount
These aren’t tech pilot numbers. These are live operational results, week in and week out.
3. This Is the Phase Where You Win — or Miss It
The major shift isn’t regulatory — it’s behavioural.
Clinics are no longer hesitating. Pharmacies are no longer wondering if the model works. And the most successful operators aren’t reinventing the wheel — they’re building repeatable systems around what already works.
Whether scaling quietly or building brands, the growth is real — and rooted in automation, compliance, and a clearer patient pathway.
If you’re:
- A UK clinic still debating timing — your peers are issuing thousands of prescriptions monthly.
- A pharmacy concerned about lift — fulfilment is seamless with integrated tooling.
- A digital health operator with regulated-care experience — you’re already 80% of the way there.
- An international player watching from afar — this is no longer early-stage. It’s mid-stage and moving fast.
4. Why This Market Is a Land Grab — And Why Now Is the Only Time It’ll Be Cheap
Today, the UK medical cannabis market serves over 65,000 active patients monthly. That number is rising fast — and heading toward the low millions within a few years.
But right now, the landscape is still wide open.
Cannabis patients aren’t just high-volume. They’re high-value. The average patient spends approximately £2,000 per year and tends to have a long-term chronic condition. Churn is low. If you serve them well, they stay.
At this stage, CACs are still low. Brand recall is still buildable. And operational differentiation — even at relatively small scale — still matters.
In six months, it may not.
5. We’re Not Building the Market — We’re Already Powering It
Script Assist wasn’t created to build a nicer interface. It was built to fix a system that didn’t scale.
Previously, clinics had to retype prescriptions. Pharmacies spent hours on manual checks. Patients got lost in the process. Nobody could run at volume without error.
Now, we support some of the highest-volume cannabis clinics and fulfilment partners in the country — not as a plug-in, but as infrastructure.
Prescriptions are rising. Errors are falling. Admin costs are shrinking. And the clinics growing fastest? They’re not waiting for regulatory change. They’re working with the systems we already have — and doing so effectively.
That’s the lesson. This is no longer a wait-and-see market. It’s one where digital infrastructure is making it viable — today.
Contact: sales@scriptassist.co.uk
Website: www.scriptassist.co.uk
Ben Hamburger Biography
Ben Hamburger is the founder and CEO of Script Assist, a leading digital infrastructure platform for the UK’s medical cannabis sector. A former strategy consultant with KPMG and BCG, he is also a chartered accountant with deep expertise in scaling regulated healthtech ventures.
