A Bend software company that started out in pharmaceuticals has landed its first contract in the legal cannabis industry.

BioMauris, formerly called Symplmed, will supply Iowa with software to track physicians, patients and products in a program for medical cannabidiol, or CBD.

Iowa selected BioMauris over Synadapt, a Tampa, Florida, company that’s not in the cannabis industry and Metrc, a dominant player in seed-to-sale tracking for states where marijuana is legal.

BioMauris CEO Erik Emerson is proud that Iowa chose his firm over Metrc, which has contracts with Washington, D.C., and nine states, including Oregon. “We provide that same level of seed-to-sale solution,” he said.

The Iowa contract is worth $250,000 in the first year and $100,000 in subsequent years, but Emerson said it’s more important that his firm gained a foothold in the cannabis industry. “It’s the fastest-growing market in the world,” he said.

Emerson’s company began as Symplmed Pharmaceuticals LLC, which in 2015 received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the hypertension treatment Prestalia.

Part of the Symplmed business model was to ship the drug directly to patients to improve compliance with prescriptions, and track physician, patient and drug data through a software platform, DyrctAxess.

Symplmed sold the drug last June to Marina Biotech in California for a price tag that Emerson said was seven figures.

Symplmed Technologies LLC retained a contract to provide the tracking software to Marina Biotech and worked with several other medical companies that ship supplements and food directly to patients.

The firm is looking for business in the pharmaceutical world, Emerson said, but closing those deals is no simple task.

“Whereas the cannabis market is far from mature, and still looking for solutions,” he said.

In December, the company’s name changed to BioMauris, which is drawn from the Latin word for tracking, Emerson said.

Emerson believes his company’s experience with pharmaceuticals gave it a leg up in Iowa, which is barely into legal cannabis. The state previously legalized CBDs to treat epilepsy, then expanded it to cover cancer, ALS and other serious conditions. The program launches in December.

BioMauris has experience with registering patients and physicians and the software will allow Iowa to collect data on how patients are doing with CBD products, Emerson said.

As states identify security issues in their seed-to-sale programs, BioMauris is playing up the security of its product, which is built on top of Salesforce, a leading customer relationship management platform, Emerson said.

In a recent audit of Oregon’s recreational marijuana program, the Oregon Secretary of State found “data reliability issues” with the Metrc software. The software was just one of several points in the 41-page report.

Emerson said BioMauris will be looking for opportunities in other states, as well as Oregon. The company is working to make its software compatible with Metrc so it can sell a point-of-sale solution to Oregon marijuana dispensaries. Taylor Rembowski, co-owner of the Oregon Euphorics dispensary on Century Drive in Bend, said he’s been beta testing the BioMauris product and thinks it will perform better than his present software when it comes to feeding real-time updates about the store’s inventory into the Metrc system.

As a pot retailer, he can’t legally place any product out for sale until it’s logged into Metrc. “A lot of things have to be tracked and tracked correctly,” he said.

— Reporter: 541-617-7860, kmclaughlin@bendbulletin.com