Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

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Alzheimer’s Article in Today’s Science

As a biologist and member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) I receive and read each week’s edition of Science, a major science journal. Today’s edition had an article titled “At last, modest headway against Alzheimer’s.”

Of course, all of us await the publication of the promised journal article that will validate blarcamesine’s clinical efficacy in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Each issue of Science has a number of important science research articles, all peer-reviewed, but very unlikely the Anavex paper will appear in Science. Most likely, it will appear in a journal dealing specifically with medical research.

Still, I was interested to learn what Science was posting about “headway against Alzheimer’s.” Inasmuch as Science is the premier American science journal, its readership includes science policymakers at all levels. Anything in the article related to Anavex and it’s molecules?

Nothing specific. The article focused only on the “headway” being made with two monoclonal antibody drugs, noted in this excerpt:

The brains of people with Alzheimer’s hold tangled protein clumps called beta amyloid, and for years scientists debated whether removing them would help patients. Various therapies that did so flopped. But the new treatment, an antiamyloid monoclonal antibody called lecanemab, slowed loss of cognition by 27%, compared with placebo, in a pivotal 18-month trial. It was enough to persuade regulators in the United States and later Japan to approve it. In trial results this summer, another antibody treatment that also targets brain amyloid, called donanemab, slowed cognitive decline by as much as 35% versus placebo in a slightly different patient population, and U.S. approval could come any day. Both therapies are given intravenously.

But unlike the reports from others, the Science author told the whole story:

Although Alzheimer’s researchers, doctors, and patients are celebrating, they’re also eyeing a dark side: the risk of brain swelling and brain hemorrhage from the treatments, which in rare cases has been fatal. People with a gene variant predisposing to Alzheimer’s, called APOE4, are especially prone to this side effect; also potentially at higher risk are people with Alzheimer’s who take drugs to prevent or dissolve blood clots, including those who suffer a stroke and get powerful clot busters as emergency treatment.

How, then, will the Anavex article compare, when it appears somewhere? Won’t be much mention of “brain swelling” or “brain hemorrhage.” And, of course, the Anavex drug will be administered merely by a daily pill; no intravenous procedures.