Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

[amstocks82]

Flurizan attempted to reduce amyloid beta 42. They did this by targeting the enzyme that "cleaves" the Amyloid precursor protein.

I would not have invested in the company based just on that one fact even in 2005.

Cells evolved over hundreds of millions of years. An adaption to cleave amyloid beta into even smaller chunks was not "selected" by nature even though an excess of some forms of amyloid beta are harmful when there is too much of them. Therefore, I would be skeptical of a drug that cleaves it into smaller chunks simply because there must be some fundamental reason that this is not a good idea.

Amyloid precursor protein is a very ancient protein that has been present in cells for probably well over half a billion years. The method to break it down used by the cells is going to be efficient and also, there will be multiple reasons for it to break it down into smaller amyloid beta chunks. Certainly, they are toxic if the concentration is too great. Unless someone could figure out this underlying reason for the cells to work they way they do and explain it in a technical journal, I would be skeptical of such a drug.

Reading of the original results:
"While patients with moderate Alzheimer's disease did not appear to benefit from treatment with Flurizan on the three primary endpoints, they did show a positive trend on the Neuro-Psychiatric Inventory (NPI), a measure of psychiatric problems such as agitation, paranoia and anxiety that are very often seen in Alzheimer's disease patients. Myriad is investigating the potential of future clinical studies in patients with moderate Alzheimer's disease to explore this finding."

http://investor.myriad.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=326072

They had no response from the patients with moderate Alzheimer's disease.

The drug if it is effective, should work with mild and moderate Alzheimer's disease. The fact that it didn't meant that the classification method could impact their results.

Anavex relies on such things as the P300 and computerized MMSE tests. The main reason I felt better about Anavex is the P300 amplitude test which I think is very important.

Next, the computerized versions of the tests are much better as they remove much of the possible bias.

In the Anavex2-73 testing, the right things improved based on how Anavex2-73 is theorized to work. That is processing speed, attention, and working memory improved most. Improvements in the health of neurons and increased placidity would impact those the most. the problem with visual learning, verbal learning and verbal memory is those are part of the brain which are more "hard-wired" at least after early childhood. In other words, there is a reason a child easily learns a language and at later ages, struggles for years to learn a new language.