That's one way of looking at it. It's also possible that he was slowly being pushed out, or that he fears an acquisition situation would create redundancy and he'd be out of a job. It's possible he just didn't care for his colleagues. There are a number of variables that could explain his departure, but high-ranking executives leave companies all the time for all sorts of reasons. Our ex-COO has so many shares of Anavex already, if this hits, he's going to be just fine financially regardless of whether he accrues any more shares vs. moving on to another opportunity.
Dr. Missling for a long time indicated that his strategy was to go at this alone. I believe he's beginning to have second thoughts. He's mentioned that company that recently sold for $14B several times and now that he's seeing the massive (over)valuations in the biotech M&A space, it could be that he's looking for a shorter horizon exit strategy.
As long as the bar remains low for an Alzheimer's drug to replace the monoclonal antibody drugs that require infusion treatment or even at-home injections, MRI follow-ups and the risk of brain bleed, I'll continue to believe that Blarcamesine has as good of a chance as any.
It's not a super-drug, but we all knew this years ago when the Anavex+ trial failed. The same holds true for Rett -- the trial failed to meet its endpoints, but the next one (if they choose to fund it) should have a reduced placebo effect. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just better than Daybue, which I believe it is.