Anavex advances drug candidate for treatment of Alzheimer...( Results from animal model testing de...)

Results from animal model testing demonstrate ANAVEX 1-41 has significant

neuroprotective and anti-amnesic benefits

GENEVA, Nov. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Anavex Life Sciences Corp. ("ANAVEX") (OTCBB: AVXL) is pleased to announce promising developments with ANAVEX 1-41, the company's lead drug candidate for Alzheimer's disease. In recent pre-clinical animal studies, ANAVEX 1-41 prevented oxidative stress, which damages and destroys cells and is believed to be a primary cause of Alzheimer's disease. ANAVEX 1-41 also prevented the expression of caspase-3, an enzyme that plays a key role in programmed cell death and in the loss of cells in the hippocampus, the part of the brain that regulates learning, emotion and memory.

The results are further highlighted in that this activity involves both muscarinic and sigma-1 receptor systems indicating a novel mechanism of action. Published results were presented at the Neuroscience 2007 conference in San Diego, California, and are available at http://www.anavex.com/publications.html. Testing on ANAVEX 1-41 is being conducted in cooperation with Universite Montpellier in France.

"The fact that we have evidence of neuroprotective action, which is essentially protection to any part of the body's nervous system, through the prevention of oxidative stress is a major milestone in the development of ANAVEX 1-41," said Dr. Vamvakides, Chief Scientific Officer of ANAVEX. "With this novel mechanism of action we anticipate that ANAVEX 1-41 may slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease and considerably improve the quality of life of those impacted by the disease as well as their caregivers."

The pre-clinical studies tested ANAVEX 1-41's ability to protect neurons, the nerve cells that make up the central nervous system, from degeneration or death. Testing was conducted in a non-transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's dis
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