Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

[Joseph_K]

Dr. Grimmer blamed the specific trial site in his interview with Mayomobile (Jesse). I agree this crowd gives Missling a break sometimes, like I blamed him for not getting clinicaltrials.gov updated on the Avatar and AD P2b/3 trials, and he was roundly defended. Maybe it's the CRO's job to update the website but it was there for Anavex to see and complain and isn't hard to fix once nagged. I don't know why the one trial site had the problem. As has been pointed out, Anavex has hired lower-tier CROs, and the problem could lie with that decision, but I get Missling's inclination towards thrift that a BP would eschew.

I believe Grimmer was the Principal Investigator (I forget all the terms, but I think he was Anavex's top guy in Germany for administrating that trial) to whom the CRO reported. With CTAD coming up, I'm sure Grimmer and Missling were perfectly aware of the problem and were harassing the CRO to get it done.

About the failure to get the clinicaltrials.gov website updated, in an earlier post I compared Missling to a general contractor who blames the plumbing subcontractor when none of the toilets in the newly built house can flush. But with the AD data delay, I can believe the problem was primarily the CRO's fault and that Missling did not have much leverage to make it act more swiftly at that point.

I had a five-person business for five years. In 1996 when (believe it or not!) web designers were hard to find and hire, I hired one who was a screw-up and then, for months, wouldn't release our website back to me (he had to communicate with the website host or ICANN or whatever). He just wouldn't act on it until I finally called his wife -- who was a total stranger to me -- and told her what a jerk her husband was! When you're little and not hiring top-tier, you can sometimes be stymied like that. Yes, Missling and I each shared in our respective blame, but I don't think we deserved primary blame by any means.

By the way, Doc, thanks for telling us some of the inner workings of the clinical trial arrangements you're familiar with.