Anavex Says Preclinical Data Positive For ANAVEX 2-73 In Infantile Spasms

(RTTNews) - Anavex Life Sciences Corp. (AVXL), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company for the treatment of neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental diseases including Alzheimer's disease, announced Wednesday that treatment with ANAVEX 2-73 significantly reduced the number of spasms in an animal model with infantile spasms (epileptic spasms) in infant rats.

In pre-market activity on Nasdaq, the shares were gaining at 2.47 percent at $4.15.

In the preclinical study, following prenatal priming with betamethasone in infant rats, spasms were recorded for 90 minutes following postnatal trigger of spasms with NMDA injection. Treatment with ANAVEX 2-73 significantly reduced the number of spasms by 55 percent compared to vehicle (p=0.0002).

The study was sponsored and performed by Libor Velisek, Professor of Cell Biology & Anatomy, Pediatrics, and Neurology and his laboratory at New York Medical College.

Christopher Missling, President and Chief Executive Officer of Anavex, said, "The positive preclinical signal in infantile spasms is encouraging evidence of beneficial effects of ANAVEX 2-73 in another rare disease and we plan to further explore seizure reductions as measurement outcomes in future clinical trials."