Moroccan tycoon Lamia Tazi's Sothema wins approval for three cannabis epilepsy drugs

Moroccan pharmaceutical tycoon Lamia Tazi's Sothema, the Casablanca-listed drugmaker controlled by the Tazi and Berrada families, has won marketing authorisations for three cannabis-based medicines to treat epilepsy, its first approvals in the medical cannabis business it has been building for the past several years.

The drugs were developed with the Fondation Mohammed VI des Sciences et de la Santé, a Moroccan health and research foundation. None of them is on sale in Morocco yet. Sothema has not disclosed their brand names, formulations, prices or launch dates, or whether the national health insurance scheme will reimburse them.

The approvals put Sothema among a small group of Moroccan companies with registered cannabis medicines. Rival Pharma 5 developed a cannabis-based epilepsy drug in 2024 and presented it at a medical conference in Milan this month.

A family company

Sothema was founded in 1976 by Omar Tazi, one of the pioneers of Morocco's pharmaceutical industry. He stepped down as chief executive at the end of 2019 and handed the job to his daughter, Lamia Tazi, a pharmacist trained at the University of Liège in Belgium who joined the company in 1998 and rose to director general. The board confirmed her as chairwoman and chief executive in January 2020. Omar Tazi died on March 20, 2020.

The company remains in the hands of the families that built it. When Sothema floated on the Casablanca Stock Exchange in February 2005, its shareholders sold just 15% of the company. Omar Tazi kept 28.79%, and relatives Badiaa Tazi, Najia Tazi and Mohamed Tazi together held another 16.73%. The Berrada family, through Abdelaziz Berrada, Halima Berrada, Bahia Berrada and Karim Berrada, owned 17.24%. Businessman Abdelmajid Chraibi held 10.75%. Those historic shareholders still own most of the company today, alongside insurer RMA Watanya with about 5% and a small free float.

The Tazis have also put money to work outside Sothema. In 2025 the family invested 100 million dirhams ($10.2 million) for a minority stake in Dislog Group, the Moroccan consumer goods and distribution company founded by Moncef Belkhayat, and sold its medical supplies business Farmalac to a Dislog unit. Mohamed El Mehdi Berrada runs Sothema's production division.

The cannabis bet

Morocco legalised cannabis for medical and industrial use in 2021 and set up a regulator, the National Agency for the Regulation of Cannabis-Related Activities, to license growers and processors. Sothema was one of the first local drugmakers to commit to the sector, and it has said it will work only on therapeutic uses.

In July 2025, Sothema signed an agreement with the foundation and its research arm, the Mohammed VI Center for Research and Innovation, covering a joint drug design unit and support for the center's medical cannabis work. The partners run a cannabinoid research unit in Bouskoura, near Casablanca, authorised by the national medicines agency, working on both CBD and THC. Sothema is preparing a clinical study on drug-resistant epilepsy in children with the university hospital in Tangier, and its research also covers multiple sclerosis and chronic pain.

At the end of April, Sothema and supply chain partner Cannaflex shipped what they described as Morocco's first export of a medical cannabis extract certified to good manufacturing practice standards. The extract, made from the local Beldia variety, is meant to be used as an active ingredient in medicines. In March, the medicines agency and the cannabis regulator signed an agreement to speed up the registration of cannabis-derived products.

Growing profits

The cannabis drugs arrive as Sothema's core business expands. Revenue rose to 3.23 billion dirhams ($328.5 million) in 2025, and net profit attributable to shareholders climbed 22% to 386 million dirhams ($39.3 million). In the first half of 2026, revenue grew 16% to 1.8 billion dirhams ($183.3 million) and profit rose 11% to 215 million dirhams ($21.9 million), driven by cancer and cardio-diabetes drugs, newer products, its Senegalese subsidiary and its Soludia unit.

Sothema employs more than 1,600 people and operates eight industrial units in Morocco and Senegal. This year it bought the rights to the Cialis brand from Eli Lilly and Co. and split its shares five-for-one to make the stock easier for small investors to buy.