Penicillin and Anavex
I contend that Anavex 2-73, and its in-the-pipeline analogues are a 21st-century penicillin, the antibiotic that revolutionized medical care in the last century. Before penicillin, an infection from a merely-scratched zit could (and often did) lead to systemic infection, sepsis, with ensuing death.
Propitiously, penicillin was discovered in 1928 by Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming. But it was not used clinically until 1942. It took many years for two crucial things to work out: a) acceptance by the medical community that penicillin actually worked and was safe, notions abjectly rejected by many for many years (“That can’t be. Fleming is nuts. No chemical can exist that kills bacteria in the body without bad side effects. We all know that!”). And b) the devising of methods to mass produce the molecule. That latter obstacle was finally overcome by American pharmaceutical firms, using innovative new production methods.
By 1942, penicillin was in full production and was a factor in Allied military successes. Our solders didn’t die of minor wound infections.
How does any of that relate to Anavex? Very much.
First, as we know so well, the medical community — researchers, physicians, and medical journalists — as they did with Fleming’s early penicillin contentions, utterly dismiss the Anavex science. “Hey, we’ve been working on Alzheimer’s now for 30 years, and we know full well it’s an amyloid and tau proteins problem. Anavex people are nuts for thinking it somehow involves rough ERs and mitochondria. We know better. We’ve been doing this for a long time.”
Secondly, as with penicillin, use of A2-73 will take a bit of time to get into the clinic (but not 14 years — let’s hope for, say, just 14 months).
And, as with penicillin, the medical community, impelled by client populations (insurance companies, patients, and caregivers), will rather quickly embrace Anavex’s new drugs; once they are available. I look forward to the media’s response to people getting up out of their nursing home beds and returning to their own beds back home.
Let’s watch the two crucial moves, the clinical testing of A2-73, FDA approval, and clinical availability; followed by what we are all really waiting for, widespread effective treatment of CNS diseases that Anavex products will work for.
Right now, we are pretty much just at the early Fleming stage of development. The science has been observed in both the lab and a few humans. 2017 should take the story into new, bigger chapters, ultimately with the successes, clinical and financial, we expect.
