Athersys (ATHX) and Fast Forward enter Collaboration to treat Multiple Sclerosis
ATHX receives Funding to advance Clinical Development of MultiStem®
ATHX and Fast Forward, a nonprofit subsidiary of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, an alliance to fund the development MultiStem® adult stem cell platform for the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis (MS), with the goal of accelerating the clinical application of MultiStem for patients diagnosed with MS.
- Fast Forward will commit up to$640K to fund the advancement of the program to clinical development stage.
The project is intended to determine the optimal dosing approach and dose level for MultiStem administered in a mouse model of chronic MS. Additionally, the project will further evaluate and validate the safety of MultiStem infused intravenously into mice with chronic MS pathology via clinical pathology and histo-pathological evaluation by a CRO.
The Bottom Line: Stem cell therapies have emerged as a potentially important approach to treating MS in recent years. Under the terms of the Sponsored Research Agreement, Fast Forward will provide funds to enable preclinical testing of MultiStem in murine models of MS to support submission of an investigational new drug application (IND) to the FDA. The aim of the IND would be to secure authorization from the FDA to conduct a clinical trial administering MultiStem to treat patients diagnosed with chronic progressive MS. Upon successful achievement of certain pre-determined development milestones, including successful completion of clinical development and commercialization, ATHX would remit certain milestone payments to Fast Forward.
MultiStem has shown promise in treating multiple disease indications in the neurological, cardiovascular, and inflammatory and immune disease areas. ATHX has advanced 4 MultiStem programs to clinical stage, including for the treatment of acute myocardial infarction, ischemic stroke, inflammatory bowel disease ( partnered with Pfizer <PFE>), and for preventing graft vs. host disease following hematopoietic stem cell transplant.
