Anavex Life Sciences (AVXL) said Tuesday it filed a marketing authorization application with the European Medicines Agency for blarcamesine to treat Alzheimer's disease.

Anavex said that blarcamesine, which is administered orally once a day, showed "clinically meaningful improvement over 48 weeks with primary endpoint ADAS-Cog13 score being larger than 2 points."

"This suggests superior numerical clinical efficacy compared to approved therapies while also slowing neurodegeneration in early [Alzheimer's disease] patients," the company said.

This is the first marketing authorization filing for the drug, Anavex said.

Anavex shares were more than 13% higher in premarket trading.