Placebo Effect Will Explain Everything
Let’s see if this scenario takes place.
The Australian trial of Anavex 2-73 begins. As per appropriate clinical trial protocols, the trial is double-blind. No one but some lines of computer code knows who’s getting what: low-dose, high-dose (experimental arms of the trial), or starch pills (placebo arm). Everyone is taking a daily little blue pill.
And, for three months, not a word from anyone on either efficacy or tolerability (adverse effects).
But, then, in about the fourth month, a few reports of profound efficacy leak out, from patient acquaintances or other external parties. “I know Sam. He’s not the same man now. Something’s really happening with him.” Statements like that.
Those sorts of leaks continue to appear in ever larger numbers (but, “...still just a handful.”)
Finally, a few news reports from Melbourne appear. “Family members of patients participating in a new Alzheimer’s drug trial have reported very interesting changes....”
From the scant information available, a number of parties (external to the trial, not the hospital, physicians, or Anavex) begin to state that, “...this drug is really going to work.” The share price of AVXL begins to climb.
That’s when we will hear from all the “experts,” both medical and investment, saying, “The reports of Anavex 2-73 successes against Alzheimer’s should not be relied upon. A classic ‘placebo effect,’ where patients and their families so much want a drug to work that they see and feel that it does, even though it really has no specific physiological mechanism. Dozens of drugs to treat Alzheimer’s have been tried; not a one has worked. There is no indication Anavex 2-73 will be any different, regardless of the strong hopes of patients and their families.”
If Anavex 2-73 does yield significant improvements in patient Alzheimer’s symptoms, when will the last Anavex critic be stilled? The most adamant, of course, will assertively claim right up to regulatory approval of the drug that “...it was all a placebo effect.” These people simply know, now, and then, that there simply cannot be an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s. End of story — for them, at least. But not for those of us who have held AVXL positions for many years, nor for the millions Anavex 2-73 will go on to successfully treat.
“It’s all just a placebo effect!” For how long will that be the “explanation?”
AI
