SeeThruEquity Initiates Coverage on Nutra Pharma Corporation with a Price Target of $0.53
July 10, 2015
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2015 / SeeThruEquity, a leading independent equity research and corporate access firm focused on smallcap and microcap public companies, today announced it has initiated coverage of Nutra Pharma Corporation (NPHC) with a Price Target of $0.53.
The report is available here:
http://www.seethruequity.com/#!nphc/c16dr NPHC Initiation Report. SeeThruEquity is an approved equity research contributor on Thomson First Call, Capital IQ, FactSet, and Zack's. The report will be available on these platforms. The firm also contributes its estimates to Thomson Estimates, the leading estimates platform on Wall Street.
Founded in 2000, Nutra Pharma is a life sciences company specializing in the acquisition, licensing, and commercialization of pharmaceutical products and technologies for the management of neurological disorders, autoimmune disorders, pain and infectious diseases. Nutra Pharma is pursuing a two-pronged strategy in which the company's clinical drug development is bolstered by a portfolio of revenue-generating over-the-counter (OTC) pain products led by chronic pain reliever Nyloxin(R) and Pet Pain-Away for companion animals. Longer term, the company is pursuing new therapeutic products that will potentially target several multi-billion dollar opportunities, including: Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN), Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease) and Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). Nutra Pharma's development is supported by 21 patents and pending patents, six published studies and review articles, and three completed Phase I / Phase II clinical trials, in addition to 12 FDA-registered OTC products in the United States and regulatory clearance for Nyloxin(R) in India.
"In our view, Nutra Pharma has taken nice strides turning the business around by driving its best sales since 2010 and improving its capital structure and cost base. Over the last year, the Coral Springs, FL-based company has reduced its debt outstanding and consolidated shares to bring the share count to 39.7mn, a number in line with its size and development stage. On the cost side, the company has made significant progress by bringing fulfillment in-house to its Plantation, FL facility, while reducing legal and accounting costs, among others operating expenses. We see several potential positive events for Nutra Pharma over the next twelve months, as the company is in the process of expanding Nyloxin distribution at home and internationally, with expansions announced thus far including Canada, India, and China," commented Ajay Tandon, CEO of SeeThruEquity. "We are initiating coverage with a 12-month price target of $0.53 per share."
Additional highlights from the report are as follows:
Focus on OTC product expansion driving growth
We have been impressed by Nutra Pharma's portfolio of OTC alternative pain products and its lead product, Nyloxin(R) for moderate and severe chronic pain. Nyloxin(R) is an effective, non-addictive, and non-opiate alternative to NSAIDs and opiates for the treatment of chronic pain, utilizing Asian cobra venom as its active ingredient. Albeit from a small base, Nyloxin(R) sales have grown rapidly since the company engaged Lumaxa to carry the product in its network marketing channels. Lumaxa began a commercial campaign for Nyloxin(R) last June and began live sales meetings in October 2014, helping Nutra Pharma generate its highest level of revenues since 2010 – with sales growth of 467% from 2013 to 2014 and over 100% from 1Q14 to 1Q15. Currently Lumaxa is carrying Nutra Pharma's OTC products in a network of over 3,000 active distributors, and management expects this figure to rise to 10,000 distributors by the beginning of 2016E, with the majority of distributors receiving auto-shipments of $100 per month.
Large market opportunity in OTC and therapeutic portfolios
In the short run we expect Nutra Pharma's results to be driven by the performance of Nyloxin(R), which management estimates is targeting a $500mn market opportunity for OTC alternative pain management. Longer term, the company is developing several pre-clinical compounds, which are in various stages of development and have the potential to significantly expand its market opportunity. Funding permitting, Nutra Pharma will initially seek to resume development of RPI-78M for MS and AMN, and RPI-MN for HIV and general anti-viral applications. Over 2.5mn people have been diagnosed with MS, which management estimates is a 16.7Bn annual market, and RPI-78M also has potential applications for AMN, a neurological disorder marked by spastic paraplegia and a peripheral neuropathy that is estimated to affect 30,000 people in the United States for which there are currently no therapeutics. RPI-MN has been shown to inhibit replication in certain drug-resistant strands of HIV, potentially opening up an avenue for the company to target this $15.1Bn annual drug market for a disease affecting over 34mn people worldwide.
