Replies to post #273540 on Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

[falconer66a]

Exactly

...the statin drugs, the number needed to treat (NNT) to prevent a single cardiac event is over 100,000.

Thank you for posting this. This was exactly why I mentioned the statin drugs, the gigantic NNT.

Take, for example, Lipitor (atorvastatin). It costs about $11 for a daily dose (https://www.goodrx.com/statins). But, as mentioned, thousands upon thousands of people have to take the drug (chronically, continuously) before a single heart attack is prevented. But insurance companies pay for it. My health insurance company each year sends me a note, asking me to check with my physician for a statin prescription. I'm 73, so the drug would putatively help prevent a heart attack. I'm aware of the many side effects of the statins; won't touch them with a gold-lettered prescription.

What if, some day, Anavex can sell a daily dose of blarcamesine to people over the age of 50, at increasing risk of any of the neurodegenerative diseases, for, say, just $5? If blarcamesine had a more favorable "needed to treat" number, say in the range of 10 to 100 (meaning ten to one percent taking the drug are kept from getting a CNS disease), do you suppose insurance companies would pay for the drug?

Five bucks a day. One-hundred million older people (in the US) taking it. To Anavex, total, gross daily revenues of $500 million. Annual gross income would be $182.5 billion.

Blarcamesine is a small, uncomplicated molecule. A 10 or 50 milligram dose, in commercial quantities, can probably be produced for a dollar or less. Another dollar for packaging and shipping. A third dollar for other, incidental costs. Two dollars, then, of cleared profit for each $5 dose sold. For a hundred million people taking it each year, that's corporate profits of $73 billion. When that happens, the AVXL share price won't be $3.97.