GW Pharmaceuticals (GWPH) announced its fourth quarter and full year financial results Tuesday afternoon. Although the company ended up missing the earnings target set by Wall Street, GW Pharma did manage to handily beat analysts' revenue expectations for the company.
Fourth quarter revenue came in at $109.1 million, a drastic increase from the $6.6 million reported a year ago. The vast majority of this figure came from sales of its CBD-derived drug, Epidiolex, which is used to treat two rare types of epilepsy in children known as Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome. The pharmaceutical company said that it sold $104.5 million worth of Epidiolex in the fourth quarter.
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GW Pharma also reported a fourth quarter 2019 net loss of $24.9 million, which is a significant improvement from the $71.9 million net loss seen in fourth quarter 2018. The company still has $536.9 million in cash and cash equivalents as well, more than enough to fund itself as it looks to break a profit in 2020.
Further details
Although GW Pharma ended up missing its earnings target, reporting a net loss per share of $0.07 in comparison to the net loss per share of $0.04 expected by analysts, revenue figures were well received. Wall Street had predicted around $105.1 million in sales for the quarter, a figure the company handily beat by $4 million.
Epidiolex holds the distinction of being the first CBD-derived drug to receive approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The decision, which was announced in June 2018, was a big deal for the industry, although the agency has yet to approve another cannabis drug since then.
