Anavex Life Sciences
AVXL on Nasdaq. Biological products, (no diagnostic substances). Market value $152m.
Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Some use the latest annual report instead, as marked. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to September 2025.
We can't read total debt from the filing, so debt is left out.
Cash flow or capital spending isn't reported, so free cash flow is unknown.
Should I look at this?
Look carefully before going further
Why it could be worth it
Read the warning sign in its own filings
This is not advice. Check the numbers below.
We could not compute this from the filings.
The filings do not give us enough to work this out.
The filings do not give us enough to work this out.
Quality score: not known. Price score: 16 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.
$1.60 a share, 3% above its 1-year low
Over the past year the price has ranged from $1.56 to $10.38.
Pays no dividend
Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).
Five years of cash, in billions
| Revenue | |||||
| Revenue | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| Operating margin | |||||
| Operating margin | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| Debt to equity | |||||
| Debt to equity | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| Shares outstanding | |||||
| Shares outstanding | 0.08bn | 0.08bn | 0.08bn | 0.09bn | 0.09bn |
Health checks
- Free cash flow positiveNot enough data
- Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Not enough data
- Financial strength (Piotroski)Not enough data
- Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
- DebtUnknown
- Revenue growth, five yearsUnknown
- Buying back its own sharesNo, 19% more shares since 2021
The quarter to June 2026
How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
- Profit: $8 million, after a loss of $13 million a year ago.
- 9% more shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit less of the company.
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| September 2024 | -$12m |
| December 2024 | -$12m |
| March 2025 | -$11m |
| June 2025 | -$13m |
| September 2025 | -$10m |
| December 2025 | -$6m |
| March 2026 | -$5m |
| June 2026 | $8m |
From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.
Dates
- Next results (estimated)
- n/a
- Last annual report (10-K)
- 25 November 2025
- Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
- 27 November 2026
Who owns it
None of the long-term investors we follow own it. 179 funds in all.
Largest holders overall
- BlackRock$21mAdded
- Vanguard Capital Management$11mAdded
- TWO Sigma Investments, LP$8mCut
- Geode Capital Management$6mAdded
- State Street$5mCut
- Federated Hermes$3mAdded
- AQR Capital Management$2mAdded
- Vanguard Portfolio Management$2mAdded
- Summit Financial$2mCut
- Goldman Sachs Group$2mAdded
From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.
Big holders and activists
1 investor owns more than 5%.
- Vanguard Capital ManagementPassive investor5.0%Since 30 June 2026
- The Vanguard GroupPassive investorSold down below 5%Since 13 March 2026
| Holder | Stake | Since | |
|---|---|---|---|
Vanguard Capital Management Passive investor | 5.0% | 30 June 2026 | |
The Vanguard Group Passive investor | Sold down below 5% | 13 March 2026 |
From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.
What insiders did
No insider bought or sold on the open market in the last 12 months.
From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.
Warning signs in its filings
Problems the company itself reported to the SEC, in its own words.
1 serious warning sign in Anavex Life Sciences’ filings.
We look for five warning signs: doubt it can keep going, weak checks on its own accounts, a notice that its past accounts can't be relied on, a change of auditor, and one customer bringing in a big share of sales. We don't check lawsuits, investigations or debt yet.
We checked the auditor's report, internal controls, restatement notices, auditor changes and big customers in the 10-K filed 25 Nov 2025, plus the 10-Q filed 28 Aug 2026 and 16 later 8-Ks.
Weak checks on its own accounts
SeriousThe company said its checks on its own accounts did not work at the end of its latest quarter. Mistakes could slip into the numbers.
“Based on this evaluation, our Principal Executive Officer and our Principal Financial Officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective as of June 30, 2026 due to the material weakness in internal control over financial reporting as described in our Form 10-K/A for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025, filed with the SEC on August 28, 2026 (the “2025 Form 10-K/A”).”
Show the full paragraph
We carried out an evaluation, under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our Principal Executive Officer and our Principal Financial Officer, of the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures as of the end of the period covered by this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. Based on this evaluation, our Principal Executive Officer and our Principal Financial Officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective as of June 30, 2026 due to the material weakness in internal control over financial reporting as described in our Form 10-K/A for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025, filed with the SEC on August 28, 2026 (the “2025 Form 10-K/A”).
From the 10-Q filed 28 August 2026, Part I, Item 4. Controls and Procedures. Read it in the filing
A 10-K is the yearly report every US company files with the SEC. An 8-K is a short notice of a big event.
What could go wrong
Cheap for a reason is the question the numbers cannot answer.
Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.
The deep dive
Everything above is arithmetic on public filings. The deep dive reads the last ten years of annual reports, the proxy statements, and the earnings calls, then argues the case the way Buffett, Klarman, and Hohn would, and checks every claim against the source.
- What the business is worth, as a range, and the margin of safety at today’s price
- Prices to start buying, buy, and buy hard
- The three things that would make this a mistake
- Every number footnoted to the filing it came from
Your first deep dive is free.
Not advice. Numbers on this page come from SEC filings and are updated each night; prices are updated again after the US market closes. The five-year figures are rounded.