Having expressed understandable apprehension due to recent political events in the U.S. and Britain (i.e. Trumps election and Brexit) London-based GW Pharmaceuticals announced on Monday thatthey suffered a 62 percentrevenue drop for 2016. However things turned around quickly. GWs stock jumped 5.5 percent on the first day of the new trading week right after the company announced positive results for one of its flagship therapies Epidiolex. This cannabidiol-based drug treats two of the most difficult-to-treat forms of epilepsy especially in children: Dravet Syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome. We are making very good progress toward a NDA [UKs equivalent of the FDA] submission to theFDA as well as preparations for commercial launch and look forward to the opportunity to make this important new medicine available to patients as quickly as possible said Justin Glover GWs Chief Executive Officer on the companys website. Our goal is to provide the children and their families suffering from these highly treatment-resistant forms of childhood-onset epilepsy with a much needed new prescription option as quickly as possible Glover continued. Orrin Devinsky M.D. of New York University Langone Medical Centers Comprehensive Epilepsy Center and Principal Investigator of the Dravet Syndrome trial said Epidiolex provides meaningful reductions in seizures for Dravet patients. The epilepsy community has been eagerly anticipating the presentation of this high quality scientific data from the Epidiolex program at the American Epilepsy Society Devinsky explained. My colleagues and I are excited at the future prospect of prescribing an appropriately standardized and tested pharmaceutical formulation of cannabidiol. If Epidiolex gets full FDA approval the DEA would need to reschedule cannabis in order for it to be prescribed to patients in the U.S. GW Pharmaceuticals also speculated in its year-end report that the U.S. presidential results could negatively impact their future in terms of foreign trade laws governing approval and importation of the cannabis-derived-medicine. Dravet Syndromeis a rare catastrophic lifelong form of epilepsy that begins in the first year of life in an otherwise healthy infant and is characterized by frequent and/or prolonged seizures. Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome is a type of epilepsy with multiple different types of seizures particularly tonic (stiffening) and atonic (drop) seizures. The cause of Lennox-Gastaut is unknown in 1-out-of-4 children. With all the excitement being generated by the recent positive results for Epidiolex medical professionals and families of children with Dravet and Lennox-Gastaut Syndromes are trying to be optimistic. Investors are genuinely excited about backing a company with such a compelling product said Glover. Its new hope for these children who have hundreds of seizures a day. This is real and its meaningful. For all HIGH TIMES medical marijuanacoverage click here. by Maureen Meehan at High Times