Icon Farms, PathogenDx Partner to Elevate Hemp Testing Standards

Icon Farms, a hemp operator and manufacturer for American hemp processors and distributors, has entered a strategic partnership with PathogenDx, Inc., an Arizona-based technology company that provides DNA-based customized pathogen testing for consumer industries. The partnership has been established to help standardize and implement microbial safety protocols across a comprehensive, emerging hemp industry with the launch of a new safety standard in testing amidst a rapidly increasing supply chain.

Revitalized by The Farm Bill of 2018, farmers across the United States are harvesting more than 480,000 licensed acres of hemp for the first time in history. Icon Farms’ rigorous safety and quality-check protocols unearthed an opportunity to build upon its founders’ expertise in bringing premium cannabis and tobacco to the marketplace in mass volumes. This partnership builds upon that commitment to quality, but in the hemp space. PathogenDx’s ultra-rapid method of testing provides results in a fraction of the time and cost, but with much better resolution and accuracy to protect consumers and patients. Aligning with PathogenDx brings world-class, innovative pathogen testing to a broader audience of hemp suppliers within the Icon Farms network.

The Icon Farms and PathogenDx standard in testing hemp cultivation sites, facilities and products will:

• Establish company benchmarks for technology processes and sophisticated machinery to manufacture commercial hemp correctly.
• Move beyond traditional microbial testing via petri dish, which can take up to three days to show results. A three-day test result waiting time is too long for hemp producers. Crops need to be harvested and moved into manufacturing. PathogenDx yields results in just six hours.
• Utilize testing that is exclusive to hemp.
• Detect and identify a variety of dangerous pathogens in a single test. PathogenDx’s advanced microarray testing platform can identify 50 varieties at once.
• Allow testing to be conducted onsite at hemp cultivation and production facilities so producers can pinpoint the source of contamination and immediately begin remediation.
• Ensure that at every step only clean hemp products are passed through the supply chain.

For more information, visit www.pathogendx.com.