CANNabinoid Drug Interaction Review (CANN-DIR™)

Paul T Kocis; Samuel Wadrose; Ryan Lee Wakefield; Aqib Ahmed; Renata Calle; Rohan Gajjar; Kent E Vrana

doi:10.1159/000528528

CANNabinoid Drug Interaction Review (CANN-DIR™)

Med Cannabis Cannabinoids. 2023 Jan 12;6(1):1-7. doi: 10.1159/000528528. eCollection 2023 Jan-Dec.

Authors

Paul T Kocis^{1

2}, Samuel Wadrose³, Ryan Lee Wakefield³, Aqib Ahmed³, Renata Calle³, Rohan Gajjar³, Kent E Vrana²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pharmacy, Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, Pennsylvania, USA.
² Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine, Penn State University, Hershey, Pennsylvania, USA.
³ Department of Computer Science, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology, Penn State University, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA.

Abstract

Non-prescription cannabidiol (CBD) and medical marijuana (cannabis) currently do not have US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved prescribing information nor a dedicated resource to evaluate potential cannabinoid drug-drug interactions with other medications. The CANNabinoid Drug Interaction Review (CANN-DIR™) is a free web-based platform that has been developed to screen for potential drug-drug interactions from the perspective of how a cannabinoid delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), CBD, or a combination of THC/CBD may affect the metabolism of another prescribed medication. CANN-DIR™ is based on FDA-approved prescribing information for the prescription cannabinoids (dronabinol, nabilone, nabiximols, and prescription CBD) and other FDA-approved prescribing information for medications sharing similar metabolic enzymes (e.g., the FDA "Drug Development and Drug Interactions: Table of Substrates, Inhibitors and Inducers"). The Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC) was the source of drug-drug interaction information for the combined ∆⁹-THC & CBD product nabiximols (Sativex^®). CANN-DIR™ provides an expeditious review of cannabinoid drug-drug interaction information, and also a platform from which the patient and health care provider can print out the search results to either initiate a conversation, or for the health care provider to provide a written information sheet to supplement their verbal discussion. Additionally, to more effectively reach a global audience, the end user of CANN-DIR™ has the ability to currently navigate and print results in any of the following ten languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Nepali, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Vietnamese.

Keywords: CANN-DIR; Cannabidol; Cannabinoid; Delta-9-THC; ∆9-THC; Drug-drug interaction; Medication reconciliation; Review; Tetrahydrocannabinol; URL.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

K.E.V. and the Penn State College of Medicine are the recipients of research support from PA Options for Wellness, a Pennsylvania-approved medical marijuana clinical registrant. The Penn State College of Medicine is a Pennsylvania-approved Medical Marijuana Academic Clinical Research Center. The authors also acknowledge Penn State College of Medicine's Center for Medical Innovation for undergraduate student Capstone project funding.