[PRESS RELEASE] – WASHINGTON, Aug. 13, 2026 – The National Compassionate Care Council (NCCC), a national coalition advancing evidence-based medicinal cannabinoid policy, announced a scientific collaboration with Standard Seed Corporation (SSC), a biotechnology company applying AI-driven in silico methods to botanical and cannabinoid therapeutic research.
The collaboration is designed to strengthen scientific standards, product characterization, data quality and evidence generation for cannabinoid medicine, including research that may help inform the future integration of cannabinoid therapies into health care.
Within the collaboration, NCCC will lead policy and advocacy work, while SSC will contribute scientific and technical expertise through NCCC's research and data collection working group.
SSC's work will focus on product characterization, traceability, scientific evidence, data standards and analysis of real-world evidence. SSC's scientific methods are designed to operate across distinct regulatory categories, including lawful hemp-derived products, state-regulated cannabis products and FDA-regulated drug development.
Among NCCC's current priorities is evidence generation relevant to the CMS Innovation Center's Substance Access Beneficiary Engagement Incentive (Substance Access BEI), an optional incentive available through certain CMS Innovation Center models that applies to eligible hemp-derived products. The Substance Access BEI incorporates clinician oversight and product quality and safety requirements, including third-party testing for potency and contaminants.
SSC's work with NCCC will contribute to the organization's broader scientific, product-characterization and data-standardization initiatives in cannabinoid research.
Founded by Dr. Suliman Sharif, Standard Seed has developed a predictive botanical AI platform that analyzes plant-derived compounds in relation to human biology and disease. Variability in botanical source materials and product characterization can complicate reproducible clinical research and product comparison. SSC applies computational biology and predictive modeling to help identify promising therapeutic candidates and generate standardized scientific insights that can supplement real-world clinical evidence.
"Meaningful medical cannabinoid policy has to be grounded in rigorous science, consistent product standards and high-quality clinical evidence," said Dr. Leigh Vinocur, NCCC’s chief medical adviser. "Standard Seed brings additional scientific and technical expertise to NCCC's broader research efforts as we work to strengthen product characterization, data quality and the real-world evidence needed to inform clinicians, patients and policymakers."
Standard Seed will also contribute its Certification of Excellence product-verification program and QR-code protocol to support traceability and data transparency. The system associates products with batch-level identifiers and provides access to product information and independent third-party laboratory certificates of analysis (COAs), including potency and contaminant testing results. Through the QR code system, clinicians, researchers, patients and other stakeholders can review laboratory-reported results and the underlying product information.
"NCCC's focus on converting real-world evidence into clinically useful data makes this a natural fit for our work," said Dr. Suliman Sharif, CEO of Standard Seed Corp. "As we advance our plant-derived therapeutic discovery pipeline, we're proud to contribute scientific tools that can improve product characterization, consistency, safety and evidence quality across cannabinoid and botanical therapeutics."
The collaboration marks another step in NCCC's effort to strengthen the scientific foundation for physician-guided cannabinoid therapies and their integration into traditional health care. By pairing SSC's botanical research capabilities with NCCC's coalition of health care stakeholders, the collaboration will support standardized evidence frameworks that can inform clinicians, researchers, policymakers and payers as cannabinoid health care and drug-development pathways continue to evolve.
