GWPH - Better Buy: GW Pharmaceuticals vs. Corbus Pharmaceuticals
This edition of our ongoing Better Buy series pits two marijuana stocks -- GW Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: GWPH) and Corbus Pharmaceuticals Holdings (NASDAQ: CRBP) -- against each other. Rather than growing plants to sell, both companies are taking the more regulated path of developing drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration from active compounds that are in marijuana or related to them.
In fact, GW Pharmaceuticals' CEO Justin Gover would rather his company not be called a cannabis stock. And Corbus' lead compound is synthesized so marijuana plants aren't even involved, although it's based on cannabinoids, the active class of compounds in marijuana.
GW Pharmaceuticals gained FDA approval last year for its cannabidiol drug Epidiolex to treat a pair of childhood epilepsies called Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS). Third-quarter sales came in at $86.1 million, up almost 26% from second-quarter sales.