Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

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The Rats Have It. Anavex 3-71 Will Be Big

From this recent paper (4 Mar 2019):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6409318/

...AF710B [Anavex 3-71] was administered (in the micromolar range) per os [by mouth, in drinking water] daily to post-plaque McGill-R-Thy1-APP rats [rats with Alzheimer’s plaques] for 5 months. Completion of the treatment was followed by a wash-out phase of 5 weeks, a unique experimental design key to discriminate true disease-modifying effects from symptomatic effects. The former should disappear after treatment cessation while the latter would be persistent (Ploeger and Holford, 2009). This treatment regimen was sufficient to fully restore cognition in the McGill tg rats [transgenic rats with definitive human Alzheimer’s]. It also led to a substantial decrease in the production of cortical Aß and in the amount of mature amyloid plaques. Interestingly, the reduction in Aß load was accompanied by an increase in CSF Aß42 levels, suggesting that the drug could not only lower Aß [plaque]production but also increase its clearance (Hall et al., 2018).

Wanna bet Anavex 3-71 can only do this in transgenic rats, not humans? Then don’t take any AVXL position thinking that Anavex 3-71 will someday be used to treat and prevent human Alzheimer’s. Continue to think that the neurology of rats, Rattus norvegicus, is so different that what is discovered in their neurons can’t accurately be extrapolated to the neurons of Homo sapiens. With that perspective, your investment funds (un-invested in AVXL) will be safe.

Some of those who post here take a different perspective, however — one that is being accurately borne out by Anavex 2-73 in the neurons of some Australians with Alzheimer’s, now for many, many months. For them, as with the lab rats that drug was tested on, the drug yields enough positive treatment outcomes that they have personally elected to continue to take the drug long after the formal clinical trial has ended. Each will have to determine personally just why that has happened.