Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

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More work showing sigma-1 receptor disease involvement.

A new paper in the Journal of Biological Chemistry describes detailed work characterizing the deep biochemistry of the sigma-1 receptor protein:
https://www.jbc.org/article/S0021-9258(21)01105-4/fulltext

It's now an error to presume that sigma-1 receptor biochemistry is either mysterious, difficult to discover, or inconsequential. A few years ago, those perspectives would have been valid. No longer. The central roles of the sigma-1 receptor protein, in modulating and facilitating a diversity of cellular processes are becoming ever more apparent.

An author of the paper, in a separate article stated the following: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/936633

Prof. Lederkremer is optimistic about the new findings: “Having deciphered a crucial mechanism in the receptor's function, we have no doubt that our new findings can affect therapeutic approaches based on S1R, and hopefully alleviate the suffering of neurodegenerative patients, especially those with ALS.

He was targeting amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) as a disease that would be open the therapy by way of the sigma-1 receptor. Of course, he did not use any of the Anavex sigma-1 receptor agonists and may be unfamiliar with them. But, very clearly, he sees proper activation of the sigma-1 receptor, or proper production of fully-formed sigma-1 receptors—both of which blarcamesine accomplishes—as ALS therapy targets.

Will Anavex have ALS in their indications pipeline? This extremely detailed paper, and a principal investigator, certainly suggest that this can be the case.

In a previous post, I thought so too, claiming that blarcamesine might be able to restore or preserve the myelin sheaths of neurons, which cause the disease. As I admitted, I was eagerly hasty and wrong in my posting. No, loss of the myelin sheath is the problem with multiple sclerosis, not ALS. But here, in this new paper, facilitation of full sigma-1 receptor function and/or structure is proposed as a potential ALS therapy. Potential Anavex involvement with the disease is now confirmed.