Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies Holdings plc announced that OCT has signed a new drug development agreement with Stemtech. Stemtech is a contract research organisation based in Oxford and led by Dr. Zameel Cader, which generates re-programmed human stem cells for research and drug discovery. Under the agreement Stemtech will provide OCT with cutting edge support for its drug development programmes, starting with Programmes 3 and 4 which are targeting pain, neurology and inflammation. OCT believes Stemtech's technology provides an in vitro translational model that will better predict results in humans. Simply put, Stemtech's model helps predict which of OCT's compounds (including the library recently licensed from Canopy Growth Corporation ("Canopy"), announced on 22 September 2021) have the potential to treat pain in patients suffering from disorders poorly treated by current medicines. Stemtech has developed an innovative "pain-in-a-dish" model which replicates human pain and which supports both compound screening and mechanistic studies. By using Stemtech's cutting-edge multi-electrode array technology (MEA), OCT can measure whether compounds in its library can reduce the "fire" rate of the neuron in real time and, thus, identify potential drugs to treat pain. Stemtech will also screen OCT's drug library (including the library recently licensed from Canopy) for compounds that can 'switch off' inflammation at the cellular level.