Suggested Reading:
https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(21)03384-9/fulltext
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41575-021-00477-7
Last weekend, over 400 liver disease stakeholders gathered in Scottsdale, Arizona for the 2nd Annual Liver Connect Conference, sponsored by the Chronic Liver Disease Foundation (CLDF). The main meeting ran Friday and Saturday and was preceded on Thursday by a half-day session devoted exclusively to NASH (NASH Connect). Episode 15 and its conversations capture some of the thinking that went into the program design and some highlights of the NASH-related sessions.
This conversation is the full body of a 1:1 interview with Dr. Zobair Younossi, President of CLDF, and SurfingNASH host Roger Green. After Zobair shares information about his background and “fact no one would know if you didn’t tell them,” the body of the conversation starts with a discussion of what CLDF sought to achieve when the organization started Liver Connect in the first place. After the broader discussion, Zobair went on to discuss why CLDF focused the NASH Connect session Thursday morning on Health Disparities, the importance of non-invasive testing and care pathways and the importance of evidence-based approaches in stratifying patient risk and developing treatment guidelines. Dr. Younossi is a world leader on all these topics, particularly when we focus on public health and epidemiology. This conversation provides a window into his thinking on what we need to do and where NAFLD treatment and advocacy are going.
This episode and conversations are sponsored by Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pursuing novel therapeutics for NASH. Madrigal’s lead candidate, resmetirom, is a once daily, oral, thyroid hormone receptor (THR)-β selective agonist that is designed to target key underlying causes of NASH in the liver. Resmetirom is currently being evaluated in two Phase 3 clinical studies, MAESTRO-NASH and MAESTRO- NAFLD-1, designed to demonstrate multiple benefits in patients with NASH. For more information, visit www.madrigalpharma.com.
