Douglas Chloupek has spent more than fifteen years building, operating, and governing licensed cannabis businesses in California across every sector of the industry: cultivation, manufacturing, distribution, retail, real estate development, public policy, and public capital markets.
He founded BAS Research, which in 2016 received the first cannabis manufacturing and production permit ever issued in the State of California — Permit No. 1, City of Berkeley — the state's first licensed manufacturing and production facility. He has developed nearly a dozen cannabis land-development and entitlement projects, built multiple retail facilities from the ground up, and constructed a 31,000-square-foot indoor cultivation facility with $11 million in tenant improvements.
As a founder and chief executive officer, he took a cannabis company from formation through public listings on the Canadian Securities Exchange, the U.S. OTC markets, and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, giving him direct experience with public-company governance, disclosure, and capital-markets obligations in the cannabis sector. He subsequently navigated a complete California receivership from the debtor side, including a year of attempted asset sales blocked by a loan-to-own lender. That work provides rare first-hand knowledge of California receivership procedure and timing, receiver conduct and standard of care, and distressed cannabis-asset disposition.
Since early 2025 he has served as founder and chief executive officer of Azalla Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company developing therapeutics for dermatomyositis, a rare orphan disease with no approved therapy, where he leads drug-development strategy, intellectual-property prosecution, and institutional capital raising.
Engagements are advisory. The practice evaluates how an operation is run, permitted, valued, or unwound — it does not take operating roles.
Chloupek Advisory does not accept interim chief executive, chief operating, or other management positions. Work is delivered as expert opinion, written assessment, and advisory counsel to litigants, counsel, lenders, receivers, boards, and investors.
