Anavex Life Sciences Shares Experimenting With 2-Month Highs

Anavex Life Sciences Corp (NASDAQ: AVXL) announced earlier Wednesday that it has signed a material transfer agreement with Biogen Inc (NASDAQ: BIIB), giving the latter the right to test its lead candidate AVANEX 2-73 in an oligodendrocyte precursor cell differentiation assay, or OPC.

OPC is used for forming the myelin coating, responsible for cognition, over the axons of nerve cells. Alzheimer's patients often suffer from demyelination or break down of the myelin sheath.

Avanex indicated that a satisfactory outcome from the study would lead to an in vivo remyelination study using a chemical demyelination model.

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AVANEX 2-73 is meant to treat Alzheimer's and the company released positive Phase 2a trial results for it in late July.

After hitting a closing high of $7.73 for the year in July, Avanex stock has pulled back notably, losing nearly half of its value since then. The Biogen deal news has pushed it above $4 level from a recent low of $2.50 hit on September 15.

At last check, the company's shares were spiking 46.14 percent to $4.59, with volumes at about 17.7 million, roughly 13 times its three-month average volume of 1.34 million. Biogen, however, is down 1 percent at $311.37.

iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (NASDAQ: IBB) follows the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index and is down over 12 percent year-to-date, but only slightly down (-0.63 percent) over the last five trading days. It has a market cap of $8.02 billion and was recently seen trading at $295.24.

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