Small Cap Apricus Biosciences Inc (APRI): The Next Viagra for Investors? FHCO & RPRX

On Friday, small cap pharma stock Apricus Biosciences Inc (NASDAQ: APRI) jumped just over 10% and not only did the stock hold onto those gains, it made another 10% jumps on Monday – meaning its time to take a closer look at the stock along with the performance of other potential benchmarks in the sexual health or reproductive health spaces like The Female Health Company (NASDAQ: FHCO) and Repros Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ: RPRX).

What is Apricus Biosciences Inc?

Small cap Apricus Biosciences is a pharmaceutical company that develops and markets through its licensing partners innovative treatments that have the potential to help large patient populations across numerous, large-market therapeutic classes including male and female sexual health.  Apricus Biosciences has one approved product called Vitaros - a topically-applied cream formulation for the treatment of erectile dysfunction. Vitaros is now approved in Europe and Canada and will be commercialized by Apricus' marketing partners, including include Abbott Laboratories Limited, Takeda Pharmaceuticals International GmbH, Hexal AG (Sandoz), Bracco SpA and Laboratoires Majorelle.  In addition, the company's Femprox is a product candidate for the treatment of female sexual interest/arousal disorder. It has successfully completed a nearly 400-subject proof-of-concept study.

As for potential performance benchmarks in the sexual health or reproductive health spaces, The Female Health Company manufactures, markets and sells the FC2 female condom, the only currently available product under a woman's control that is approved by the FDA while Repros Therapeutics is a development stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of new drugs to treat hormonal and reproductive system disorders.

What You Need to Know or Be Warned About Apricus Biosciences Inc

Last Thursday, Apricus Biosciences announced that France's National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety (ANSM) had granted national phase approval to Vitarosand the press release noted that there are now a total of seven national phase approvals for the treatment, including France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom, following its broad approval by European health authorities in June 2013. It should be mentioned that nearly 150 million men worldwide suffer from erectile dysfunction with the market in Europe potentially worth approximately $1 billion in revenue alone plus Apricus Biosciences has announced a steady stream of partnerships lately to market Vitaros in various European countries where its approved.  

In addition and back in November when earnings were announced, CEO Richard Pascoe stated:

"Given the recent DCP approval of Vitaros, in Europe, and the fact that Femprox,contains a unique concentration of the same active ingredient and novel proprietary permeation enhancer as Vitaros, We believe there may be a streamlined path to approval in Europe for Femprox. Therefore, we have requested a meeting with the European regulatory authorities to confirm whether a more rapid development path for Femprox is possible in Europe. We expect this meeting to occur in the first quarter of 2014."

Otherwise, it should be noted that Apricus Biosciences has reported revenues of $28k (Sept 30, 2013), $1,102k (June 30, 2013) and $1,019k (March 31, 2013) along with net losses of $2,985k (Sept 30, 2013), $3,935k (June 30, 2013) and $8,673k (March 31, 2013) so far this year. However, cash and cash equivalents stood at $20.6 million as of September 30, 2013 verses $15.1 million as of December 31, 2012. Based upon their current business plan, management believes it has sufficient cash reserves to fund its ongoing operations through 2014. This probably means they won't need to do a dilutive share issuances in the very near future.

Share Performance: Apricus Biosciences Inc vs. FHCO & RPRX

On Monday, small cap Apricus Biosciences rose 10.05% to $2.30 (APRI has a 52 week trading range of $1.66 to $3.49 a share) for a market cap of $86.33 million plus the stock is up 15.6% since the start of the year and up 53.3% over the past five years. Here is a look at the performance of Apricus Biosciences verses that of The Female Health Company and Repros Therapeutics:

As you can see from the above chart, Apricus Biosciences has been all over the place and trending down lately while The Female Health Company has been a more solid performer and Repros Therapeutics has been an underperformer.  

Finally, here is a look at the latest technical charts for all three stocks:

The Bottom Line. Despite the mixed long term performance, investors and traders alike should at least be keeping an eye on small cap Apricus Biosciences – especially next year.