Merck Serono, a division of Merck KGaA, has signed a five-year agreement with Kadimastem to use of its drug-screening platform to discover new oral drugs for the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

The system developed by Kadimastem uses human functional tissues produced industrially from pluripotent stem cells to search for potential new drugs. Existing MS treatments act by slowing down the loss of myelin-forming cells, but there is great interest in finding new medications that could repair the myelin by stimulating the regeneration of myelin-forming cells. The drug-screening project aims to discover potential oral drugs that act by stimulating myelin repair.

“We are pleased to announce this agreement with Merck-Serono, a company with robust experience in drug discovery, development and marketing in the Multiple Sclerosis area,” said Yossi Ben-Yossef, chief executive officer of Kadimastem. “The undisclosed compensation for this agreement will provide financial support for Kadimastem’s own in-house drug discovery initiatives, in the field of neurodegenerative diseases as well as in the field of diabetes.”