Will These Be the Top Marijuana Stocks to Own in 2018?

GW Pharmaceuticals, Canopy Growth, and Insys Therapeutics have catalysts that could cause their shares to soar next year.

The marijuana market is growing rapidly and that's creating a lot of interest in owning marijuana stocks. However, investors need to pick what marijuana stocks to buy carefully. There's likely to be more losers in this industry than winners, and it could be a long time before any of these companies deliver consistent earnings per share.

If you're wondering what marijuana stocks could be top stocks in 2018, you might want to consider the catalysts ahead for GW Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:GWPH), Canopy Growth (TSX:WEED)(NASDAQOTH:TWMJF), and Insys Therapeutics(NASDAQ:INSY).

Eyes on the finish line

Unlike marijuana companies that are selling medical marijuana at dispensaries in states with medical marijuana laws on the books, GW Pharmaceuticals is pursuing Food and Drug Administration approval of a marijuana-based drug for epilepsy, and a decision from the FDA could happen early in 2018.

The drug -- Epidiolex -- has already delivered impressive efficacy in late-stage clinical trials, and if the FDA gives it a blessing, Epidiolex can sidestep the risk that Washington, D.C., starts enforcing federal laws prohibiting marijuana sales in states that have legalized it.

Although an approval of Epidiolex isn't guaranteed, results from its trials shows that it reduces the number of monthly seizures in patients with rare forms of childhood-onset epilepsy by about 40%. What makes this finding particularly impressive is that patients participating in trials were heavily pre-treated, having received a median of four prior therapies.

Clearly, Epidiolex offers important new hope to patients whose disease is inadequately controlled by currently available options. According to GW Pharmaceuticals, that's a big addressable market. There are 470,000 children with epilepsy in the U.S. alone, and one-third of epilepsy patients continue to endure seizures despite receiving treatment with existing medicines. Since epilepsy drugs can cost thousands of dollars per year, if Epidiolex is approved and it's priced similarly, it could generate annual sales into the nine figures.

While GW Pharmaceuticals hasn't filed for FDA approval of Epidiolex yet, management has said it's on track to file in the middle of 2017. That suggests a filing will happen soon. If the FDA awards Epidiolex a priority review, then a decision could come six months after the application is accepted by the FDA. Based on that timeline, Epidiolex could be commercially available by the middle of 2018, assuming manufacturing inspections go well and the Drug Enforcement Administration is quick to schedule it.

Going global

The U.S. marijuana market is getting bigger as more states pass pro-pot legislation, but it faces risks because federal laws still schedule marijuana as a Class 1 drug.

Rather than risk the Trump administration's crackdown of marijuana markets in America, it may be a better bet to look north of the border to Canada, where medical marijuana has been legal since 2001 and recreational marijuana could become legal soon.

IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.

The biggest marijuana stock in Canada is Canopy Growth, the well-funded marijuana producer behind the popular marijuana brand Tweed. Canopy Growth has over $100 million on its balance sheet, and it did $40 million in marijuana sales last fiscal year. It's using its deep pockets and cash flow to boost grow capacity, acquire smaller competitors, and establish itself as the go-to online marketplace for legal weed when recreational marijuana gets the green light in Canada.

As of now, the Canadian marijuana market is worth about $80 million per year, but analysts think it could grow to $5 billion once recreational marijuana markets are up and running. Undeniably, Canada offers Canopy Growth a big opportunity, but the company isn't relying solely on Canada to fuel future sales.

Last year, it acquired Medcann to gain access to Germany's emerging marijuana market, and in September, German regulators are expected to announce whether Canopy Growth will be awarded one of 10 licenses to grow marijuana within its borders. Canopy Growth also owns part of Bedrocan SA, giving it exposure to Brazil, and AusCann, allowing it access to Australia.

Currently, Canopy Growth's share price values the company at about $1.3 billion. Undeniably, that's a rich valuation for a company with only tens of millions of dollars in sales and no profits last year. However, if the recreational market in Canada (and elsewhere) leaps forward in 2018, shares could still head higher.

Getting back on track

It's been a rough go for Insys Therapeutics investors. The company's been under scrutiny ever since former executives were arrested on charges of illegally marketing its opioid spray Subsys for off-label use. A revolving door in the C-suite and ongoing investigations have done little to help the company stay focused on launching its marijuana-based drug, Syndros, and developing cannabidiol drugs like Epidiolex for tough-to-treat epilepsy.

The challenges have sent shares reeling, but Insys Therapeutics has a new CEO, and he's saying all the right things.

On the company's last quarterly conference call, management said it wants to resolve outstanding investigations, and now that it has DEA scheduling in hand for Syndros, it should begin marketing it soon. Furthermore, it appears ready to jump-start its drug research program for cannabidiol, a non-psychoactive chemical cannabinoid found in cannabis that's the active ingredient in Epidiolex.

It's anyone's guess when (or if) the company settles investigations, but investors would likely applaud news of that happening. It's also unclear how much of the market Syndros will capture, but the opportunity there is big enough to move the needle for investors, too. Syndros is an oral formulation of the THC-drug Marinol, and the generic Marinol market is worth about $200 million annually. 

Getting its marijuana research and development back up to speed could also be good news. In addition to researching CBD in epilepsy, it's evaluating CBD as a pain treatment alternative to opioids as well.

Overall, this is a beaten-down marijuana play with a lot of potential market-moving news in the coming year or two, and that could make it a top-performing marijuana stock in 2018. 

By Todd Campbell

Source: https://goo.gl/MzHxDE

Beyond The Marijuana Index: MJIC CEO Talks Company's Desire To Be 'Amazon Of Weed'

MJIC Inc., the company behind the much-discussed Marijuana Index*, tracks U.S. and Canada-traded weed stocks and has been used as the base for the main cannabis ETFs out there. However, the media seems to have emphasized only one of the company’s multiple business segments.

Chatting with cannabis industry insiders, Benzinga realized MJIC’s business had changed a lot in recent months. In speaking with CEO Sturges Karban, a Harvard University alum and seasoned corporate finance veteran, the refined strategy the executive team has been implementing becomes clearer.

The ‘Philosophical’ Framework

MJIC started as an investment business, a venture capital firm focused on the cannabis space. Nonetheless, the past couple of years have witnessed a migration toward what Karban has defined as a “full-blown operating business that fits squarely inside of the industry to help professionalize it.”

The legal marijuana industry nowadays is mostly a compliance business. Unsurprisingly, this has been one of MJIC’s priorities as well. “In making the decision to transition from being an investor to being an operator, one of the things that we decided (as a matter of policy and principle) was we would just absolutely not compromise our compliance,” the CEO told Benzinga. And, MJIC does not apply that standard to how it operates its own business but also sets it as a prerequisite for anyone that wants to transact with the company.

Bezos Style

When Karban took over as CEO at MJIC, he had a vision for the company: It would become the Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN of cannabis. What he projected was a first-of-its-kind omnichannel approach to the industry that ultimately creates, not just a commercial platform, but also a community — “an identity destination that is more than just a pragmatic instrument for daily life.”

“What we are building toward is an infrastructure, a strategy, a platform and a community that essentially will look a lot like the Amazon of legal cannabis, starting in the state of California and then coloring in the map state by state,” he said.

In other words, the company is looking to be able to service and support every vertical in the supply chain, from B2B wholesale to on-demand consumer deliveries — always with a laser-focus on compliance.

“We want to offer a truly comprehensive, value-added package that goes beyond just logistics and moving stuff around in trucks up and down the state.”

While MJIC seems to be taking many steps in the right direction, becoming “the Amazon of weed” is certainly an ambitious goal.

Many of the pieces are already in place; only some infrastructural details remain to be filled, the CEO said. “We started this with an analytical review of what we already own in our portfolio, the services business that we had built out in the transition period between being an investment company and an operating company,” he said. So, the first question was, which of the assets already owned by MJIC supported the infrastructure they were looking to build?

The first differentiator the management team identified was the media business, which allowed them to “help support and promote client products and services as their distributor.”

The other legacy asset MJIC held, which execs believed would help support an aggressive expansion into distribution, was the compliance business. “That services offering has both a commercial and regulatory value proposition,” Karban said. “It’s commercial because we are constantly on top of what is happening at all 482 municipalities in California, so we have an informational advantage in terms of where licensing is heading. But, most importantly, from a regulatory perspective ... We understood the importance of compliance.”

Filling In The Blanks

Once the core assets had been pinpointed, MJIC started looking into how to fill out an infrastructure that could support the transformation of its virtual platform into a physical one — from a logistics, fulfillment and delivery perspective.

So, the company started making strategic acquisitions.

First came Rolling Paper Depot: a proprietary, national e-commerce platform focused on unregulated products like lighters and rolling papers. After that, it was Hippie Butler, a personalized subscription business with similar products. With these two businesses, the e-commerce and subscription boxes were checked.

Finally, MJIC purchased Speed Weed, one of the largest local, on-demand delivery businesses in Southern California, which also offered a statewide overnight courier service for large B2B hauls.

“If you look at all of those channels kind of aggregated into one platform, there is a centralized community around it and an access point to it that we are building on a proprietary technological basis,” Karban noted. “That gives you the reach into everything, every channel. It’s complete and end-to-end, from cultivation all the way to consumer."

“So, we are bringing that functionality, the ability to lawfully move products in whatever form it is, from whatever place it needs to go in California, across any vertical, and across any channel, supported by media, compliance, and financial services. That’s the package that we’re offering to people and that we have in place today.”

The Middleman

Although MJIC wants to become a full-service company, its core business focus is placed on distribution. “Of all the different verticals that compromise the supply chain, distribution is ultimately going to be the organizing force of the industry because all of the others are kind of siloed in what they do,” Karban explained. “Distribution is a strategic place here because that is ultimately the force that organizes it, connects all of those different stakeholders.”

Source: MJIC

This is where the company aspires to be like Amazon: In wants to insert itself into the lives of its customers, both on the business side and on the consumer side, making itself both instrumental and indispensable to them.

Some of the major companies included in the North America Marijuana Index are:

• GW Pharmaceuticals PLC- ADR GWPH
• Axim Biotechnologies Inc AXIM
• Terra Tech Corp TRTC
• APHRIA INC COM NPV APHQF
• AURORA CANNABIS IN COM NPVACBFF
• CANOPY GROWTH CORP COM NPV TWMJF
• Cannabics Pharmaceuticals Inc CNBX
• Kush Bottles Inc KSHB
• Scotts Miracle-Gro Co SMG
• Insys Therapeutics Inc INSY
• Zynerba Pharmaceuticals Inc ZYNE

By  Javier  Hasse  

Source:  https://goo.gl/JBSt46

The One Statistic All “Pot Stock” Investors Should Know

Oakland, Calif. – Now that I’m on my way home from the Fourth Annual Cannabis Business Summit & Expo, there’s one statistic I just can’t stop thinking about.

And that’s a big deal.

You see, people throw around a ton of numbers at these conferences. But their true values can be incredibly opaque.

Whether the data you pick up on the Expo floor is from an entrepreneur, a lobbyist, a politician, an investment analyst, a researcher, a salesperson, or even a “brand representative,” you’ve got to do some work with it.

You’ve got to put it under the microscope, turn it around in your head, and figure out what it truly means. While most of the “tips” you get are just noise, many are interesting enough to share with friends.

But only a very, very few are truly valuable.

I’m talking about a number or statistic that flips a switch in your brain – and points your way toward future profits in your investment portfolio.

And the one number that stuck with me is this – 25%.

Here’s why…

The One Statistic All "Pot Stock" Investors Should Know

That’s the percentage drop in opioid-based fatalities in states where medical cannabis legalization has occurred, said Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, during his Expo-opening speech.

In other words, states that have legalized medical marijuana experience 25% fewer opioid-based fatalities than states that have not legalized medical cannabis.

So that’s a significant – financially and emotionally – number.

You don’t need me to tell you that we’re in the middle of a huge and growing opioid crisis.

THE BIG QUESTION: What is the Kenyan Blue Whale? [And who are the Lundins?]

Overdose deaths involving prescription opioids have quadrupled since 1999. In 2015, opioids were involved in the deaths of 33,091 people in the United States. Most of these deaths – more than 22,000 (about 62 people per day) – involved prescription opioids, according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services data.

And a study from the American Society of Addiction Medicine for 2016 found that prescription pain relievers – almost entirely opioid-based ones – are the cause of roughly 40% of all drug overdoses. That makes them by far the leading cause of accidental death in the United States. The study also found that four of every five new heroin users started out misusing prescription painkillers.

As this 25% statistic shows us, medical marijuana and cannabis-based drugs – which can be used to treat chronic pain – are going to be one of the biggest solutions to ending our opioid crisis.

And we’re just at the beginning.

You see, many states are just getting started with medical marijuana. That means its positive impact will likely surge with time.

Think about the kind of impact we’d see if cannabis-based medications, ones that could take market share from opioid-based ones, were available throughout the United States – prescribed by doctors and sold at traditional pharmacies.

Well, we’re getting there.

Despite the fact that the federal government still classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has signaled that it will approve a cannabis-based pharmaceutical this summer or fall.

SPECIAL REPORT: Three Ways to Profit From Medical Marijuana Now.

Epidiolex, from GW Pharmaceuticals PLC (Nasdaq ADR: GWPH), earned fast-tracking status from the FDA and then blew away people with successful trials through multiple phases.

We’ve discussed GW Pharma here before… but I talk much more about this situation in the first-ever Roadmap to Marijuana Millions Monthly, which I’m releasing today.

But here’s the short version…

GW is poised to literally change the prescription drug game when it comes to marijuana. And that will bust open up all sorts of new market opportunities.

That’s why my team and I saw so exhibitors at the Expo hawking lab equipment, secured transfer of product, and other pharmacy and biotech needs.

And that’s just one set of “pick-and-shovel” sub-industries cropping up as legalized marijuana – which will be a $24 billion industry in the United States alone by 2025 – spreads throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and even Australia.

Any talk that the boom period is over and investors are done with cannabis is premature, if not downright foolish. This conference only galvanizes my well-researched belief that there are at least three major catalysts for marijuana companies yet to come in the next 6 to 12 months.

When you see so many new downwind industries and companies continuing to rush in, as we have at the Expo, you know there’s still something going on there… something big.

The next wave for this industry will be an exciting, profitable ride. I share it all with my paid-up Nova-X Report members in regular Roadmap to Marijuana Millions updates – and the brand-new new monthly newsletter I just told you about.

If you want to find out how to get onboard, just click here.

Have a great day – and think about how that 25% statistic could put you on The Road to Wealth…

By Michael Robinson

Source:https://goo.gl/dbfahU