This biotech stock is rated ‘Buy’ by Zacks, based on excellent cash flow and momentum.
Top Picks Update
Anavex Life Sciences Corp. (AVXL)
from BI Research
In the past six months, Anavex Life Sciences Corp. (AVXL) has made several presentations on A2-73 at scientific and investor conferences shedding more light on the excellent results on Alzheimer’s patients from its Phase 2a trial as it continues to refine its PK/PD data in preparation for a Phase 2/3 trial. Investors have responded well to this encouraging information.
Hundreds of drug trials have failed in their attempts to address amyloid plaques that build up in the brains of these patients. However, A2-73’s approach is much like that of the latest immuno-cancer therapies which enable the body’s own defense mechanisms to recognize and fight cancer cells. In A2-73’s case, it works further upstream stimulating the Sigma-1 Receptors (that are in every human being and animal) to do their job cleaning out misfolded proteins that cause the build-up of amyloid plaque in Alzheimer’s sufferers.
Rather than lay out all the very encouraging scientific data from the Phase 2a trial which showed patients hovering near baseline or even improving by various measures after 1-year (unheard of in Alzheimer’s treatment), perhaps it is more useful to just say that all the patients in the trial wanted to continue to take A2-73 for another two years beyond the first year of the trail. The drug is also very well-tolerated.
Meanwhile, the company is about to enter a Phase 2 trial for Rett Syndrome with funding from the Rett Syndrome Foundation, a Phase 2 Parkinson’s trial with funding from the Michael J Fox Foundation. A2-73 has also shown promise for infantile spasm, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy. The fact that the drug seems to have a favorable effect on such a broad spectrum of neurological diseases indicates that Anavex may very well be onto something with this Sigma-1 receptor approach.
Anavex recently hired a former FDA officer with 24 years of experience at the FDA to be its Sr. VP of Regulatory Affairs. The shares remain a Buy.
Tom Bishop, BI Research, www.biresearch.com, June 30, 2017