“If successfully shown to be both safe and effective in a larger Phase 3 trial, this drug could be used to treat millions of patients with NASH, including our patients at UC San Diego Health,” said Loomba. 

Co-authors of the study include: Arun J. Sanyal, MD, Virgina Commonwealth University; Kris V. Kowdley, MD, Washington State University; Deepak L. Bhatt, MD, MPH, Mount Sinai Heart; Naim Alkhouri, MD, Arizona Liver Health; Juan Pablo Frias, MD, Velocity Clinical Research; Pierre Bedossa, MD, PhD, University of Oxford; Stephen A. Harrison, MD, Pinnacle Clinical Research; Donald Lazas, MD, Objective Health; Robert Barish, MD, Ocala GI Research; Mildred D. Gottwald, Pharm.D, Shibao Feng, PhD, Germaine D. Agollah, PhD, Cynthia L. Hartsfield, PhD, Hank Mansbach, MD, Maya Margalit, MD, all at 89bio; and Manal F. Abdelmalek, MD, MPH, Mayo Clinic.

The research was funded, in part, by 89bio, ENLIVEN (Grant Number: NCT04929483) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (Grant Number: P30DK120515).

Disclosure: Rohit Loomba serves as a consultant to Aardvark Therapeutics, Altimmune, Amgen, Anylam/Regeneron, Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb, CohBar, Eli Lilly, Galmed Pharmaceuticals, Gilead, Glympse Bio, Hightide, Inipharma, Intercept, Inventiva, Ionis, Janssen, Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, Merck, Metacrine Inc., NGM Biopharmaceuticals, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Sagimet, Terns Pharmaceuticals, Theratechnologies, 89 bio and Viking Therapeutics. Research grants were received from Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Galectin Therapeutics, Galmed Pharmaceuticals, Gilead, Hanmi Pharmaceutical, Intercept, Inventiva, Ionis, Janssen, Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, Merck, NGM Biopharmaceuticals, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Sonic Incytes, and Terns Pharmaceuticals. Loomba is a cofounder of LipoNexus Inc.