We are truly in an unusual situation here. As everyone acknowledges, Missling has no incentive to misrepresent that Anavex has succeeded in this trial, since that would, in relatively short order, result in personal and corporate catastrophes. On the other hand, not making ordinary data disclosures supporting his claim remains unexplained and this silence has some immediate downsides to the share price.
I am going to make the easy assumption that Missling is a rational actor. That is to say, he understands these points and for a greater reason has chosen this course. The question, then, is what can that greater reason be?
What is his context? In normal circumstances, a late stage drug trial addresses one symptom of a disease, and incrementally builds upon prior work. Lecanemab is a good example of this. Eisai/Biogen do not need to develop the theoretical underpinnings of the amyloid plaque theory; this has been common knowledge for a generation. And given the relatively uncomplicated MOA -- antibody versus plaque -- the result curves are classic, and means tests are there obvious measures. None of this applies to blarcamesine and its MOA.
Missling has previously asserted that blarcamesine is a paradigm-shifting, CNS platform drug. A month ago, George Perry used the adjective "revolutionary." Mayomobile's research indicates blarcamesine is a highly complex pharmaceutical, with an intricate and not yet fully described MOA, and with diverse therapeutic effects. He has also gone into interesting MOA details based on Anavex's genomic study, a study being extended in the upcoming full trial analysis.
If these things are true, the data underlying the trial results are highly atypical. They are complex, likely nonlinear due to genetic differences in the trial population, and still in the process of being understood by Anavex itself. Missling hinted at this when he described their genomic study as "contextualizing" the upcoming results. I doubt this context is presently available to Anavex; that will take more time.
Given all this, given the high stakes Anavex has set, given the ingrained amyloid mindset of a generation, and given prior shorting whenever Anavex has disclosed results (particularly the PDD study), I can understand why Missling is holding back right now. He may not particularly share his stockholders' preoccupation with today's stock price, and with his cash hoard the market cap is not of great concern. Instead, he knows that he needs to complete his science before he unveils his data. He will be challenging everything that is believed to be true, and he will need all his armor. So we wait.
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