The only pharmaceutical company to use CBD as an ingredient in one of its drugs just received an excellent piece of news on Tuesday. GW Pharma (NASDAQ: GWPH) announced that European health regulators had approved its CBD oil for use in treating two specific seizure disorders.
Investors would remember GW Pharma as being the first company in the U.S. to get approval from the FDA for a CBD-derived drug back in 2018. Known as Epidyolex, the drug made news in the cannabis community and set a precedent for the FDA to follow afterwords.
Used as a seizure treatment for patients with Dravet and Lennox Gastaut syndromes, specialized forms of childhood epilepsy, GW Pharma now is planning to launch its hallmark CBD drug in Europe following this decision.
“The approval of cannabidiol oral solution is an important milestone for patients and families whose lives are significantly impacted by these rare, complex and life-long forms of epilepsy,” said Isabella Brambilla, Chairman of the Dravet Syndrome European Federation. “We are very happy that patients will now have access to a much-needed, new treatment option, and one routed through a rigorous clinical trials programme and licensed by the EMA.”
Both Dravet and Lennox Gastaut syndromes are vey difficult to treat in children, with very few patients being able to control their seizures. This was likely one of the reasons why the FDA approved the drug in the first place, considering that CBD is a relatively harmless compound.
Patients opposed to taking experimental pharmaceutical drugs are also more willing to use Epidyolex, considering that it is based on more natural compounds rather than artificial, synthetic compounds produced in a laboratory. While not taken by itself, when Epidyolex is combined with other therapies, there is a significant reduction in seizures for patients with few consequences. The only main side effects are some fatigue, diarrhea, decreased appetite, and at worse, vomiting.
Shares of GW Pharma initially jumped by 3.6% but ended up giving back all of those gains, ending Tuesday down 1.9%. The $46 billion market cap pharmaceutical giant is up 26.5% so far in 2019, broadly ignoring the downward trend of most cannabis stocks thanks to its limited exposure to the area.
As a pharmaceutical company first, GW is the only company of its kind to have successfully developed a cannabis-related drug for specialized medical usage.
GW Pharma Company Profile
GW Pharmaceuticals PLC is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing novel therapeutics from its proprietary cannabinoid product platform in a broad range of disease areas. Its business activities are functioned through three reportable segments which are Commercial, Sativex Research and Development and Pipeline Research and Development.
The company’s lead product candidate is Epidiolex, which is a liquid formulation of pure plant-derived cannabidiol used for the treatment of a number of rare childhood-onset epilepsy disorders. The company also develops and markets Sativex, an oromucosal spray for the treatment of spasticity due to multiple sclerosis. Geographically its presence can be seen across the region of UK, Europe, US, Canada, and others. – Warrior Trading News
