Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

[falconer66a]

It’s a Semmelweis Thing

Is it possible that research continues to be done on MABs because there is also a belief that AD is a complex disease and a successful MAB might be used in a combination therapy?

No. The development of monoclonal antibody drugs to treat Alzheimer’s continues because the exact cause of Alzheimer’s disease, except in uncommon cases with a genomic, genetic mutation cause, is now predominately understood by the grandees of Alzheimer’s research to be definitively caused by what the MABs aim to destroy, the beta-amyloid plaques and tau protein tangles.

Formerly, before the beta-amyloids and tau tangles were discovered and characterized, Alzheimer’s was generally regarded as idiopathic, without a known or discoverable cause. Then, so wonderfully, the beta-amyloid and tau tangle hypotheses changed everything.

“Hey! Look at this stuff. We found the substances that get deposited in nerves or brains that must be the actual cause of Alzheimer’s. Now, we can fix it. Make monoclonal antibodies that will twist the immune system to label these discovered substances so that they will then be regarded as alien or waste molecules that the immune system will then attack, destroy, or expel. A viable, effective treatment for Alzheimer’s will ensue. Go at it, guys! We can fix this disease.”

But....

Actually, beta-amyloids are commonly found in older people without any cognitive decline. They have the chemical that causes Alzheimer’s, but don’t have the disease. Um...?

Then, when MAB drugs for Alzheimer’s have been approved by the FDA and Alzheimer’s patients have been treated, therapeutic results have been less than overwhelming. Underwhelming, actually. Slight to moderate slowing of cognitive decline, while accompanied by ominous adverse events, side effects — hemorrhaging in the brain, and actual shrinkage of the brain.

Over the centuries, medical theory and practice has always held tightly to its received wisdom. Check how Semmelweis’s contention that germs actually caused the post partum deaths of women, and how nobody paid any attention. Medical practice at the time “knew better.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

Presently, Alzheimer’s research is immersed in a Semmelweis phenomenon. “We know the cause. We’re gonna fix it, no matter what. MABs against the waste molecules that cause Alzheimer’s symptoms!”

Then, there’s Anavex Life Sciences Corp, which will prove to be the actual Semmelweis for Alzheimer’s.