Good Monday morning, everybody, and welcome back from the weekend. As promised in Friday's newsletter, we've got a new trading idea for you today. This one's from the biopharma space, and from the cannabinoid space in particular... arguably the most game-changing development from the industry in years. Yet, we've only scratched the surface on this front. We're not going to tease you today simply because this one requires a little more time than usual to explain. The small cap suggestion is a company called Vitality Biopharma (STVFD). Don't sweat it if you've never heard of it. Most traders haven't. That's because the company didn't get its moniker until May of this year as a result of a new focus for a company that used to be called Stevia First. Those of you who know the Stevia First story will recall it was an outfit looking to establish stevia (an all-natural alternative to cane sugar) crop-growing operations here in the United States. The vast majority of the plant that can be converted into a no-calorie sugar substitute is grown overseas and then imported. It works, but it's not fiscally or time-efficient. The same company was also using science to enhance the quality and yield of sweetener extracted from stevia plants. As it turns out, some of the same scientific processes used to create an all-natural sweetener have an application in other areas too. Namely, a process called glycosylation that converts stevia extract into a sugar substitute can also convert cannabinoids into cannabinoid glycosides... or cannaboside prodrugs. In short, the same basic molecular formula that makes cannabis an incredibly useful basis for drug creation is made even better with the Vitality Biopharma's glycosylation process. As much as we'd like to get into all the science of the company's proprietary and patented drug-creation processes, they're beyond the scope of our look here today. If you want to know more, the company's website serves up the details your inner-scientist may need. Right now, we're just going to keep it simple and say Vitality Biopharma's work to-date has been focused on the use of cannabidiol as a means of creating superior drugs. Cannabidiol is a non-psychotropic derivative of cannabis, which has demonstrated therapeutic effects for serious neurological conditions including rare seizure disorders, and for alleviating symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Vitality Biopharma's prodrugs -- drug converted into their effective form after processed in the body -- could exert the same beneficial therapeutic effects, but with notable improvements like a better tasting formulation, better oral bioavailability, or a delayed release mechanism which enables patients using these medications to enjoy long-lasting, overnight relief. Vitality Biopharma is taking aim at two areas in particular... multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disease. Its VB100 drug has been developed as a treatment for IBD. Vitality Biopharma aims to perform the first-in-man clinical studies of proprietary cannabinoid glycoside 'cannabosides' as a therapy for Inflammatory Bowel Disease. VB210 will seek to relieve symptoms of multiple sclerosis as well as address similar indications like fibromyalgia and neuropathic pain. Both drugs are expected to start their phase 1/2 studies in 2017. There's a third drug in preclinical development, and Vitality's got more than 40 pending patents on other cannabinoid-based glycoside prodrugs. It's at this point a would-be investor might start to wonder what STVFD brings to the table other drugmakers (and even other cannabis-centric drug developers) don't also have to offer. Glad you asked. The advantage of Vitality Biopharma's science is simple... as was noted above, it allows for several things other cannabinoid, non-prodrug treatments don't. Namely, since cannabidiol doesn't create a psychoactive effect, Vitality's drugs allow for higher, more effective dosing. Moreover, since these drugs are prodrugs and aren't activated until in the body, they allow for targeted delivery to the GI tract (yet can also selectively target other body parts, even as far away from the GI tract as the brain). Perhaps more than anything though, these drugs are orally-administered by virtue of being highly soluble, making them easy to use. As impressive as some other cannabinoid drugs have been, their use has been known to cause significant problems like hives (when delivered with a transdermal patch) or oral lesions (when used with an alcohol-based mouth spray). Not to beat up on another company's medicines, but cannabinoid drug Sativex from GW Pharmaceuticals (GWPH) and Marinol from AbbVie (ABBV) don't inherently avoid the nasty side effects of this category of therapies. Vitality Biopharma's drugs do. It's not a detail on many people's radars right now, but the bigger medical marijuana and cannabinoids get, the more that kind of tolerability will matter. The other reason one might want to take a speculative position in STVFD: Vitality isn't trying to reinvent the wheel. While one has to respect the pioneering spirit of biotech companies willing to try something completely different (and maybe even try something a little bizarre), those types of long shots rarely make for good investments. There's just too much risk of a drug's failure. That's not what Vitality Biopharma is looking to do though. The industry has already proven cannabis-based drugs can be effective, particularly as therapies for inflammatory bowel disease, muscle spasticity in multiple sclerosis, neuropathic pain, schizophrenia, and even control of seizures. STVFD is simply building on proven research with an even better version of existing therapeutic approaches. That reality lowers the risk of an investment by upping the odds of success. And make no mistake - cannabinoid drugs are already a proven market. Synthetic cannabinoid drug sales were estimated at $133 million in 2014, and that was before regulators became at least semi-friendly to the idea. Just think what could happen when Vitality explains to regulators how its drugs are non-psychoactive. That's not the market you'd want to focus on though. Think bigger. The multiple sclerosis market is worth approximately $18 billion per year. The inflammatory bowel disease market is worth an estimated $7 billion in the U.S. alone, and is approaching $10 billion on a global basis. As for cannabinoids, some believe this budding market -- now that governments are more accepting of them -- could exceed $20 billion by 2020. Even a small piece of that pie could be a windfall for Vitality Biopharma. You know the drill by now. Never put more into one trade than you can afford to lose, and use a limit order to get in if you want in. And, once you're in, use a stop-loss to protect yourself. You know the whole story now though. This looks like a great risk/reward scenario if you can be patient and let the market get to know the company the way you now know the company. The ongoing advent of medical marijuana and cannabinoids will likely offer the stock a nice boost from time to time as well. This is a space most investors should be in, and STVFD looks like a great way to take that stance.