As the global population grows older, with senior citizens expected to outnumber children by the 2070s, chronic disease rates continue to rise, and access to healthcare stagnates across the world, there is a pressing need for companies to innovate in touch with the future of pharma, improve the quality of care and re-orient stock investors away from legacy technologies.
This presents the active healthcare investor with a path to put money to work, isolating the most promising among these innovations based on value-add and market expectations for long-term growth.
In the newest edition of Stockhouse’s Weekly Market Movers, I’ll examine two pharma stocks whose underlying companies live on the leading edge of their respective industries, making convincing pitches about why their products benefit from tailwinds just beginning to unfold.
Lantern Pharma
Our first pharma stock, Lantern Pharma, market capitalization US$48.11 million, uses artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the cost and timeline of oncology drug discovery and development.
This article is disseminated in partnership with Lantern Pharma Inc. and PharmAla Biotech Holdings Inc. It is intended to inform investors and should not be taken as a recommendation or financial advice.
The company’s flagship AI and machine learning platform, RADR, analyzes more than 200 billion data points and more than 200 algorithms in the service of solving unmet needs.
The platform has yielded a therapy pipeline spanning multiple cancer indications, including solid tumors, breast cancer, lung cancer, blood cancers and an antibody-drug conjugate program, combining into what management estimates to be a more than US$15 billion market opportunity affecting hundreds of thousands of cancer patients across the world.
With Lantern demonstrating that RADR can shorten early-stage drug development by 70 per cent, while reducing associated costs by 80 per cent – as per slide 3 in the August 2025 investor deck – further developments in ongoing clinical trials (slide 43) should continue to broaden awareness of RADR’s margin-enhancing efficiency, which will only be accelerated by AI’s rapid integration across the healthcare system. The global healthcare AI market is expected to skyrocket from US$11.2 billion in 2023 to US$427.5 billion by 2032, representing a hefty 47.6 per cent compound annual growth rate.
Panna Sharma, Lantern Pharma’s chief executive officer (CEO), joined Stockhouse’s Brieanna McCutcheon to chat about the company’s recent phase-1a clinical trial milestones with its LP-184 solid tumor therapy. Watch the interview here.
Lantern Pharma stock (NASDAQ:LTRN) last traded at US$4.46. The stock has added 16.02 per cent year-over-year but remains down by 75.74 per cent since 2020.
PharmAla Biotech
Second in our pair of future-oriented pharma stocks is PharmAla Biotech, market capitalization C$13.21 million, a specialist in the research, development and manufacturing of MDXX-class molecules, including the psychedelic drug MDMA.
PharmAla is hard at work monetizing mounting evidence that psychedelics have a role to play in treating mental health disorders – including addiction, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)- executing on a business plan divided into drug development and production of its LaNeo-branded MDMA.
PharmAla is currently the only company providing clinical-grade MDMA for patient treatments outside of clinical trials, as well as the only GMP-certified supplier in Canada, Australia and for FDA-approved clinical trials in the United States.
The company’s lead drug candidate, ALA-002, an MDMA variant with evidence of reduced cardiac toxicity and an improved safety profile, is currently in phase-2 trials substantiating potential applications to treat anxiety and PTSD, the latter alone representing an up to US$1.5 billion market opportunity – as per slide 5 of the Q2 2025 investor deck.
Now revenue positive, having grown the metric by 13x from C$80,000 in 2022 to C$1.04 million in 2024, look for PharmAla stock (CSE:MDMA) to reflect the company’s shift from venture to money-making endeavor, as its management team, well-versed in government relations, accounting and healthcare R&D, guides operations towards profitability.
Shares last traded at C$0.12, adding 56.25 per cent year-over-year and 25 per cent since listing in 2022.
Nicholas Kadysh, PharmAla’s CEO, spoke with Stockhouse’s Ricki Lee about the latest developments with LaNeo and ALA-002. Watch the interview here.
Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next week for a new edition of Weekly Market Movers, where I delve into companies that sat down with Stockhouse for an interview over the past week. Here’s the most recent article, in case you missed it.
Join the discussion: Find out what investors are saying about these pharma stocks on the Lantern Pharma Inc. and PharmAla Biotech Holdings Inc. Bullboards and make sure to explore the rest of Stockhouse’s stock forums and message boards.
Stockhouse does not provide investment advice or recommendations. All investment decisions should be made based on your own research and consultation with a registered investment professional. The issuer is solely responsible for the accuracy of the information contained herein.
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