Hundreds of applicants have asked for licenses to grow or sell medical marijuana in Pennsylvania -- including dozens in the state's southeastern corner -- but state officials on Wednesday refused to disclose the locations of any proposed facilities.

In their first accounting of the flood of applications, Health Department officials said they received more than 500 packages by the March 20 submission deadline, and have sifted through 258 applications. Among those were 31 applications to grow and process medical marijuana in Philadelphia or its surrounding suburbs, and 61 to dispense the drug in an eight-county region including the city.

But unlike when state gambling license applications were under review a decade ago under then-Gov. Rendell, officials said the Wolf administration would not release the names of the people behind the applications or the locations where they want to grow or sell the drug.

Health Secretary Karen Murphy said addresses would be made public only after permits were awarded, and officials were hoping that would be done by the end of June. The administration is doling out 12 grower licenses — two in southeastern Pennsylvania — and 27 permits that would allow up to 81 dispensaries, where prescriptions could be filled, across the state.

Health Department leaders said the office was sifting through each mailed envelope and box one at a time, logging the paperwork and sending it to a panel of experts reviewing and scoring each bid. They declined to say who was on that panel or how big it was. Officials said they will release the remaining list of applicant companies in four to six weeks.

The department on Wednesday disseminated a two-column, six-page table listing only corporate entity names of applicants and which of the six state regions where they hoped to operate. Asked why the administration was withholding locations of prospective growing and dispensing facilities, Murphy said such a disclosure would be premature. 

"That’s important information to provide on those that are granted permits," she said at a news conference inside the Capitol. "People need to know where the applicants are going to operate their businesses. But at this point … [the] information that we have provided is adequate."

Adding a column to that computerized chart with addresses "would be time consuming and would take away from the necessary efforts that we have underway to give medical marijuana to patients in a short a time as possible," said John Collins, director of the Office of Medical Marijuana.

The department also has no "searchable database," he said. "The community that wants to learn more about what their local municipality has granted from a zoning perspective needs to check in with their local municipality." 

Under the law passed last year by the Republican-controlled legislature and enacted by Democratic Gov. Wolf, municipalties were not required to be notified of proposed sites or to hold public meetings. It was up to prospective operators, in their applications with the state, to produce evidence that the property where they hoped to grow or sell the drug complied with local zoning codes.

The size of the applicant pool roughly matched the anticipated frenzied interest in getting in on the ground floor of the potentially lucrative medical marijuana industry, which some advocates hope will be the first step toward broader legalization of the drug. Officials had expected to receive up to 900 applications.

Of the 258 applications logged so far, 132 are for grower/processor permits and 126 for dispensary permits.

Despite the fact that hundreds of potential applications remain unopened —and that 28 were thought to be missing for some time before being found within the Department of Health offices, officials said they are on track to award permits by June and have the program up and running in 2017.

The timeline, Murphy said, "is still achievable."

The state has been moving swiftly to implement a law since it passed last spring. The law aims to supply cannabis to seriously ill patients who have any one of 17 qualifying ailments.

Medical marijuana already is legal in some other states, including New Jersey. Pennsylvania's law prohibits the drug from being made available in dry leaf or plant form — only extracts will be sold in pill, oil, gel, vapor or liquid forms.

The permit applications that are pending represent just the first phase of the bidding process. The state also is preparing to offer clinical registrant licenses, which would attach medical marijuana to existing hospitals that also serve as academic medical institutions.

That credential would allow eight academic medical centers to select investor partners to establish research, growing, and dispensary networks of their own. Health systems have been soliciting potential suitors for months.

Additionally, the state has not yet credentialed doctors to participate in the program.

The applicants for growing operations in the Southeast region, which includes Philadelphia, include: 

Advanced Grow Labs

Agronomed Pharmaceuticals

Aries Therapeutics

BRGG

Bunker Botanicals

CAPS Production

Chester Grows

Clean Cannbis LLC

DocHouse LLC

Elemental Health Group

Franklin Labs

Holistic Farms

KalCannaPharm I

Keystone Compassion Center

Kind Medicinal Curatives

KWT Industrial Growth

Lancaster Wellness Consultants

Laso Therapeutics, Lito Shepherd

LiveFree PA Partners

National Holistic Healing 

PA Health and Wellness

Pallia Tech

Penn's Greens

Pharma Cann Penn

Philagrow

Provident Green (Pennstar)

Sage Biotech PA

Snider Health, Lindy Snider

The Sentel Group

TheraBloom 

Vessel Life Science

Applicants for dispensaries in Southeastern Pennsylvania include: 

Aries Therapeutics

Backcross Pharma

Bay, LLC

BHS Wellness, LLC

Black Lab Botanicals (2 applications)

CAPS Retail

Chester Grows

Chroniceuticals LLC

Clean Green (Kyu Young LLC)

CMD, LLC

Diverse Solutions

Elemental Health Group

Elemental Health Group - Port Richmond Dispensary

Franklin Labs

Greenhouse Wellness

Greenies LLC

Happy Wellness LLC

Healing Hands Apothecary

Healing Hope

Herbal Life LLC (Vita Verde)

Holistic Pharma (4 applications)

Ilera Healthcare

Keen Meds

Keystone Dispensaries / Chamounix Ventures

Keystone Medicinals

Lancaster Wellness Consultants

Leaf Relief (2 applications)

LiveFree PA Partners 

Mary Jane's Closet

National Holistic Healing Center

Nature's Care and Wellness of PA

Nature's Root

Nina's Group

Northeast Compassionate Care

Organic Pharmacy

Pa Health Concepts

PalliaTech

Pandea Remedies

PC Penn

Penn's Greens

PennStar Medical

PharmaCann Penn (2 applications)

Prime Wellness of PA

RAMS MM Dispensary

Revival Wellness Center

Revolution Medical Services

Skippack Dispensary

SMPB Retail

Snider Health (2 applications)

Terra Vida Holistic Centers (3 applications)

The Natural Dispensary

Tree of Life Dispensaries