The Ugly Duckling, a retrospective from August, 2015
Once upon a time, some researchers thought, "Maybe a sigma-1 receptor would solve our problem." It didn't.
But in Greece, Dr. Alexandre Vamvakides thought, "Hey, just because it doesn't help that problem, it doesn't mean it's not useful for something else," so he began studying it. That kind of research costs a lot, so he joined up with Tom Skarpelos, an investor who could help. He shelled Thrifty Printing, which was no longer in operation, and turned it into a biotech research company, and they named it Anavex Life Sciences.
They added people to their team, and decided to try to reach more investors by listing their company on the American Over The Counter (OTC) Markets. Maybe they didn't know the OTC was frowned on by Wall Street big-shots.
They made some amazing progress, and behold, one of their sigma-1 receptor candidate drugs actually cured pre-clinical trial animals of Alzheimer's! Yea!
Unfortunately, they needed more money, and an expert who liked their research to help them grow into the kind of company that could change the world.
So there they were. A good idea, with great potential, but out of money, stuck in the OTC, and without the right person to lead them forward. The poor company's stock was even the victim of pump-and-dump fraudsters.
But they didn't give up. They kept at it, and finally found Dr. Christopher Missling, who was just the person they needed! He secured a ten million dollar loan, and they launched the first ever clinical trial that would give their leading drug candidate to people with Alzheimer's, and they even started making plans to move from OTC to a big board.
It seemed like half of forever, but then, on July 22, 2015, the first glimpse of the results were revealed. It worked! Tests showed improvements that were better than the standard medicine for Alzheimer's! Hooray!
And that... was just the beginning.
“I never dreamed of such happiness as this while I was the despised ugly duckling.” --H.C. Andersen
Bullish
