Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

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Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease

I don't know if anyone has touched upon this since there has been so much attention about just the CTAD conference itself.

"Abstracts accepted for presentation at CTAD 2015 will be published in a special issue of the Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease after the event."

Remember that the extension period for presentations was from September 1 to September 10. The official PR from anavex was October 7 despite us knowing September 29, thanks to josh_luke - MSG #19441. However, the title changed from the initial submission for whatever reason. Maybe the editorial board of the Journal requested the change for publishing the abstract. That's a minute detail though, I think the more important indicator is that the editorial board who would accept abstracts for presentation and publication would need to review what anavex had to say and decided that it was that important to include in both presentation and publication after the deadline for submissions. Remember, they go hand in hand as per their mandate.

"The JPAD « Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’Disease » will publish reviews, original research articles and short reports to improve our knowledge in the field of Alzheimer prevention including : neurosciences, biomarkers, imaging, epidemiology, public health, physical cognitive exercise, nutrition, risk and protective factors, drug development, trials design, and heath economic outcomes.

JPAD will publish also the meeting abstracts from Clinical Trial on Alzheimer Disease (CTAD) and will be distributed both in paper and online version worldwide.

We hope that JPAD with your contribution will play a role in the development of Alzheimer prevention."
http://www.jpreventionalzheimer.com/about-the-journal.html


The Journal is not some hack job or information package handed out afterwards as some will try and say. It is published by SERDI which, "... publish scientific journals and books in the field of gerontology and aging related to diseases such as the Gerontological year, the Monthly Newsletter of the Gerontology Year, Alzheimer's disease, EHPAD: Research and clinical practice, JNHA; of economy, tourism, law and air transport. SERDI publisher collaborate to provide scientific events in these areas." http://www.serdi-publisher.com/en/accueil


Coming back to the Journal there is information as to its inception last year posted by the ALZFORUM.
http://www.alzforum.org/news/community-news/averting-alzheimers-new-journal-prevention


As for one of the Editor-in-Chief, Jacques Touchon is a prof at Montpellier School of Medicine. So who else is from there? Tangui Nicolas Maurice who is on the SAB. But wait, who else has Jacques worked with. Our newly acquired SAB member, Harald Hampel who not only sits on the JPAD editorial board but also worked on a EU-US task force in a paper published in 2011.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301008211001602
If you bother reading who is on this task force you will also notice that Paul Aisen is part of the team as well. Who is he? Oh that's right, he's on the SAB as well.

And again in another paper published in 2013, Touchon, Hampel, Ainsen all involved as part of a larger EU/US/CTAD Task Force
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/257623871_Designing_drug_trials_for_Alzheimers_disease_What_we_have_learned_from_the_release_of_the_phase_III_antibody_trials_A_report_from_the_EUUSCTAD_Task_Force
But see the title of this paper, the focus is on Drug trial design for Alzheimers which came before anavex started conducting their trials but of course after Hampel came aboard. You have to figure that if anavex wasn't doing things in a manner that could be successful, they would not seek out Hampel and have his acceptance as part of the team. So on the SAB, you have 2 very respected scientists that have researched the utter failure of Bapineuzumab and Solanezumab in primary endpoints. I mean sure they might clear amyloid build up but what use is it when the patient's cognitive and funtioning doesn't improve. I think Hampel will be instrumental in P3 clinical trial design. I also find it interesting that Hampel was added to the SAB announced on September 21 and shortly afterwards changes were made to the current clinical trial on September 25.

Another point I want to make is that this will be the very first time that they will actually be orally presenting results in a scientific conference. If you remember back at the AAIC, it was only a poster presentation so it would depend on who wants to stop by and talk to you about your work. This is definitely a step up and having all the authors there is a huge point as well. From what I can only dig up from the AAIC conference, only Missling was there. There was a quote from Macfarlane in the PR but it does not state that he actually attended the conference. If anyone has concrete proof please feel free to correct me. I searched for anavex and it says Christopher Missling.
https://ep70.eventpilotadmin.com/web/planner.php?id=AAIC15

In summary, I believe that if Anavex didn't have something really good to say with the professional reputations of the SAB and management on the line as well as personal relationships this would not be happening. Why in the world would they push through the abstract to CTAD after the deadline and for CTAD to agree to include them in the presentations and to be published in the scientific journal. I highly doubt that anyone likes to dig their own grave in a very public and highly scrutinizing forum. There's always other ways of doing it like a quiet press release of the results and make up some bs about promising data that they have to go through and that they are seeking FDA guidance. Trust me, I've been through many failures and the press release is always the same, disappointment with a spin to make it sound positive so shareholders hang on. Hope is a dangerous game to play when it doesn't work but I'm pretty sure that is not the case in this instance.