Drug Screening Platforms 

Kadimastem develops a unique drug screening platform in which hESC-derived oligodendrocytes (OL) or precursors (OPC) serve as the target tissue for evaluating compounds that can stimulate the process of nerve remyelination. Typically, OPC cells are seeded over nerve cell axons (derived from murine embryos or from human ESC) and cultured for 1-2 weeks during which the OPC become mature OL and form myelin sheaths around the axons. The co-culture of OPC and neurons is carried out in multi-well culture dishes amenable for high content screening. This system provides a functional assay on human OL, allowing the screening of large series of compounds for their potential to promote repair of myelin. The assay can also detect compounds which have undesirable toxic effects. A major advantage of this drug screening platform is that it uses human cells under reproducible standardized industrial manufacturing conditions. This in vitro human myelination assay may therefore be very useful for the development of drugs for treating MS as well as other neurological diseases affecting the myelin. Kadimastem is interested to collaborate with major pharmaceutical companies that may benefit from its hESC-based drug screening platform. The company anticipates that by mid 2011 it will enter into strategic drug discovery collaborative agreements.

Kadimastem is also developing drug screening platforms for other hESC-derived cell types (heart cells, liver cells, pancreatic beta and other islet cells, as well as additional types of neurons and glial cells). Drug discovery deals can generate short term revenues with further annual revenues. The annual worldwide market for cell based drug screening is estimated at US$ 800 million annually and has a ~10% annual growth (Visiongain, Drug Screening Market Analysis, 2009).