As cannabis legalization advances, so does the demand for cannabis testing services to ensure that medical and recreational marijuana offered on the market complies with quality and safety standards for consumption and is free from hazardous substances. At this juncture, PURA Analytical Labs—a company headquartered in Duncan on Vancouver Island—offers a range of analytical services to the agricultural, greenhouse, and Canadian medical and recreational cannabis industries.
In 2018, the analytical service company offer edpotency testing and microbial screening for cannabis products. Since cannabis was legalized in October 2018 in Canada, PURA Analytical Labs has transitioned to offer a broad range of analytical services, including cannabis terpene and flavonoid analysis, mycotoxins, pesticide, heavy metals, plant viruses and residual solvent screening. The testing facility today is an authorized analytical tester under the Cannabis Act. The changing retail cannabis market, quality control, and the legal requirements for compliance testing all contributed to the conception of Pura Labs.
“We aim to help licensed producers, micro growers, and nurseries to meet the Health Canada requirements and achieve the quality assurance required to market a safe, standardized, quality medicinal/recreational product,” says Denise Johnson, Head of laboratory operations at PURA Analytical Labs.
Health Canada licensed Pura Labs in 2019 to test cannabis due to Denise’s experience in an analytical laboratory setting and her ability to find the right partners in the industry. The company’s professional analytical chemists, microbiologists, and technicians use state-of-the- art testing equipment to offer reliable and accurate results. PURA Analytical Labs also offers personalized services to individual medical/recreational cannabis users.
Pura’s testing facility can test various cannabis products with validated methods including flowers, concentrates, edibles, topicals and infusions.
The analysis begins with freezing the sample of 35 grams (as per the European Pharmacopoeia standard) for a minimum of one hour. Upon complete homogenization of the sample within the provided sample container, it is then distributed to the different Health Canada required tests. As each bud from a flower can be different from the other, PURA runs duplicate and sometime triplicate tests to achieve reputable and accurate results.
We aim to help licensed producers, micro growers, and nurseries to meet the Health Canada requirements and achieve the quality assurance required to market a safe, standardized, quality medicinal/recreational product
Quality control samples are also utilized for each test assay, such as spiking known concentrations of pesticides to a sample, then comparing the results to the known value. Quality control samples ensure the results are accurate, while running duplicate and triplicate samples ensure data precision.
Pura Labs also regularly participates in interlaboratory proficiency testing including the Fall 2022 round of the Emerald Tests (badges awarded in December 2022).
A case study that elucidates the competence of Pura Labs’ services is an interaction with a client dealing with trace pesticide contamination in their facility from an unknown source. Pura Labs’ team of experts found the culprit was the fungicide Myclobutanil and sought to help find the source of the contamination. The team was quick to suspect a neighboring vineyard that was using fungicides. To prove that the contamination was from an outside source, the Pura Labs team examined the client’s facility’s air intake filter, which tested positive for Myclobutanil in a concentration higher than from the cannabis sample from within the facility. As a result, the client was advised to upgrade their air intake filter system to a HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filter as a remedial measure, as well as timing their harvest as far off as possible to the neighboring farm’s spray schedule. The result was a passing cannabis sample with my clobutanil testing below Health Canada’s acceptable limits.
With Pura’s brand new, state of the art instrumentation on site and additional instrumentation on the way, Pura Labs is expanding and moving to a bigger testing facility in the city of Duncan. Adding to their portfolio of testing services, Pura has recently acquired a Controlled Substance Dealers license for analyzing psychedelic compounds for therapeutic use in 2022. The testing facility strives to be a top-notch analytical services provider by offering affordable prices with quick turnaround times.
