https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(21)03384-9/fulltext

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 continued on the issue of pediatric NASH and NAFLD. Naim Alkhouri discusses the urgent need to include pediatric and adolescent patients in clinical trials, while Louise Campbell asked whether we could possible get results soon enough to help today’s youngsters with NAFLD or NASH. Marcelo Kugelmas stated his firm conviction that we need to prove safety and efficacy available, but that there are many other steps we can take (lifefstyle modficiation, for one) if we have adequate commitment. This led Roger Green to note government action in the UK to improve the informational quality of food and fast-food restaurant advertising and to ask whether something similar could happen in the U.S. This led to a discussion about food labelling in the UK, Michele Obama’s program in the US, the impact of sugar taxes and food advertising bans during certain times of day, and the overall potential for government activities to succeed. In the end, the group agreed that with money, an advertising campaign to back these kinds of issues might have an excellent result.

The conversation ended with the beginning of a shift to the Saturday session, but first Mazen added a comment about how fantastic it was to have Harvey Alter kick off our Friday morning session.

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.