Failure of Alzheimer's drug Dimebon: Anavex Life Sciences comments

Anavex Life Sciences Corp. ("ANAVEX") (OTCBB: AVXL) today issued a statement following today's announcement from Pfizer and Medivation (MDVN) that their investigational Alzheimer's drug Dimebon did not meet either its co-primary or secondary endpoints compared to placebo during pivotal Phase 3 clinical trials.

"While this is disappointing for the Alzheimer's community, there have been many doubts expressed about Dimebon. These doubts have been documented by leading scientists, including ex-National Institutes of Health (NIH) staffers. This failure of Dimebon, which was hypothesized to act as a mitochondrial pore blocker, on top of the repeated failures of every drug studied for removing beta amyloid from the brain as a way to manage Alzheimer's disease, suggests that novel mechanisms of action that attempt to modify the disease itself, rather than treat symptoms, are necessary," said Cameron Durrant, MD, MBA, Executive Chairman of the ANAVEX Board of Directors.

ANAVEX is preparing to enter Phase 1 clinical trials with ANAVEX 2-73, its lead compound for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, later this year.

ANAVEX 2-73 is a first of a new class of oral, disease-modifying drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, which employ an approach that targets neither amyloid, nor tau, nor mitochondrial pore blockade.

SOURCE Anavex Life Sciences Corp.