The 2022 NAFLD Summit uniquely presented a range of perspectives and insights on fatty liver and metabolic diseases.

NAFLD Summit in Context and Learning from Failed Trials

Program speakers Mazen Noureddin, Sven Francque and Hannes Hagström join Surfer, Roger Green, on site from Dublin to review their reactions immediately after the conference ended. At the outset of this episode, the group discusses the benefits of participating in a smaller conference more focused on the challenges presented by the field of NAFLD. Mazen likens the NAFLD Summit to NASH-TAG, asserting that these specific conferences advance the field and address deeper layers around the issues that matter most. “You start being provocative.”

Mazen goes on to raise the issue of glycemic control and the impact of glycemic control on NASH drug performance. This bleeds into a brief point about the value of simply stopping fibrosis progression instead of the need to prove regression. He then identifies two sessions he considered particularly valuable: the Saturday morning autopsy of failed Phase 3 trials and therapeutic discussion about drugs at different stages in development. This segues into a discussion of optimism which can derive from the recent Akero and Altimmune results. In terms of Altimmune, Mazen asks whether the drug should go directly from Phase 1b to Phase 3. In general, the group believes that Phases 2a and 2b have value here. The panel agrees that the presentations on three failed Phase 3 trials were richly valuable and that each offered its own clear lessons for researchers.