Germany’s Merck KGaA filed for approval of its multiple sclerosis (MS) pill cladribine in the US in a bid to bring the first oral treatment against the debilitating disease to market. The company has submitted a New Drug Application (NDA) with the FDA two months after regulatory filing in Europe. The move follows a pivotal Phase III clinical trial, which showed in January that cladribine reduced the number of relapses per year in patients with some forms of MS by 58 percent compared with a placebo.