Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

[JB3729]

Hmmm, sure sounds like AVXL's lead trial investigator thinks the trial results are great. Of course, he has only been involved in 16 Alzheimer's trials, so what does he know?

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3672856-anavex-life-sciences-interview-with-dr-stephen-macfarlane
Five out of the 6 cogstate domains showed improvement, with 3 of these showing large effect sizes. The 'one-back' test within cogitate showed an effect size of 1.1 (meaning the standard distribution curve of the results was improved by 1.1 standard deviations, a huge effect size. A published meta-analysis of donepezil's benefit on the same test showed an effect size of 0.28. The significance of this particular change is underlined by the fact that 75% of our sample had already been taking a stable dose of donepezil for at least three months, so the improvements on the Cogitate battery (and on all the other cognitive outcome measures, were achieved over and above the gains our participants might already have achieved through being on donepezil. The same is true for the improvements noted on MMSE and ADCS-ADL, and the EEG markers (of which one ERP was statistically significant). I gather much is being made in certain circles that the remainder of the EEG markers, as well as the MMSE and ADCS-ADL scores failed to achieve statistical significance, but in a 5-week study of 32 patients it would almost have been beyond belief if this were to have been shown to be the case. The study was not powered to demonstrate significance, but the response on certain outcome measures was so marked that significance was achieved anyway (at a level of p=0.001 in the case of the Cogitate one-back task.