This bio-pharma company is seeing fantastic results with its Alzheimer’s studies.
Anavex Life Sciences Corp. (AVXL)
From BI Research
Anavex Life Sciences Corp. (AVXL) is a bio-pharmaceutical company that amazingly few know about, but those who do are passionate about. Its lead drug is Anavex 2-73 (A2-73) is an orally available drug with a clean safety profile that gives every indication so far of being highly effective against Alzheimer’s disease. I’ll explain. Though there are four drugs approved, none of them really works beyond 6 months. A2-73 is currently in a 1-year, 450-patient Phase 2b/3 Alzheimer’s trial that is halfway through enrollment. If successful, the company will file for provisional approval.
In an earlier, smaller Phase 2a study, comparable patients in the ADNI data base not taking Anavex 2-73 saw four times the deterioration in their Mini Mental State Exam score as those protected by the higher dosage of Anavex 2-73 after two years. For scale, a perfect score is 30, and in this realm, scores run below 26. And in Anavex’s Phase 2a trial after 148 weeks, the high dosage of A2-73 cohort saw only a 3-point average decline in Activities of Daily Living Score (a normal score is about 70 or better), as compared to a 25 point decline (8 times the decline) in the low dosage group (that basically did not work, so was effectively a placebo).
This is phenomenal. Nothing on the market today can come even close to this and if the company can prove this in the Australian trial, it will be on track to become the lead Alzheimer’s drug in a market that is at least $10 billion worldwide. Proof of the pudding, 95% of those who have completed the current 1-year trial period are voluntarily continuing to take A2-73, and some (from the earlier Phase 2a trial) have continued for as long as 3-4 more years now. Sometimes, that speaks louder than the hard data.
In addition, Anavex is currently wrapping up a Phase 2, 120-patient study with A2-73 for Parkinson’s dementia and is working on three Phase 2 trials for Rett Syndrome, a devastating disease that strikes girls in infancy, handicapping them severely in almost every function. Data from these trials are expected in 2020. There are no guarantees on Wall Street, but I hope you will agree that the above at least stacks the odds in our favor.”
I would now call this a Table Pounder.
Tom Bishop, BI Research, www.biresearch.com, December 31, 2019