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Faith & CultureOur drug could potentially save countless lives, free up thousands of organs for the most serious transplant emergencies, save patients and doctors millions of dollars, and possibly extend human life expectancy. Of course who knows, maybe it’ll grow there heads on you too: that’s why you have clinical trials. But so far so good, and it’s exciting to be involved with it.
Galectin, Intercept, Others Vying for Lead Drugs in NASH Epidemic
Yahoo Finance
July 25, 2014
WHITEFISH, MT / July 24, 2014 / Fat is driving the bus these days in one narrow, but widening, biotech sector as companies strive for dominance. Among these are Galectin Therapeutics Inc. (GALT), Intercept Pharmaceuticals (ICPT), Raptor Pharmaceuticals (RPTP) and Gilead Sciences (GILD), all of which are in search of a cure for one stage or another of “fatty liver disease.”
Fatty liver disease, at its extreme, means certain death. The prize these companies are seeking is not only to cheat death but also to claw back some of the astronomical healthcare costs related to the condition. Taking into account the varying stages of fatty liver disease, the U.S. market is projected to be valued at up to $40 billion by 2025. There’s always the liver transplant option, right? Wrong. One estimate, from TransplantLiving.org, places the cost of a liver transplant at nearly $600,000 and that estimate does not even cover all the other healthcare costs on the long road to referral for a transplant. For the half a million people in the U.S. that have liver cirrhosis or the up to 15 million people suffering from fatty liver disease, the hope for a transplant is not good either, considering only about 6,300 liver transplants are conducted annually.
Worse yet, diagnostics outside of a biopsy are lacking and there are no FDA approved therapies for the treatment of liver fibrosis, which explains the value Wall Street is placing on this relatively unattended segment of biotech.
Medical terms for these related diseases and their stages vary. NAFLD is a catch-all term meaning nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (estimated to affect about 30% of the North American population); NASH refers to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, a condition which, according to a statement at Science.gov, “can progress to cirrhosis in 15-20%” of patients. The statement goes on to show that NAFLD “may predispose patients to hepatocellular carcinoma,” i.e., liver cancer. The U.S. National Institutes of Health notes that “NASH occurs in people who drink little or no alcohol and affects 2 to 5 percent of Americans, especially people who are middle-aged and overweight or obese,” and that the condition also occurs in children.
From a clinical stage perspective, Intercept is leading the race, having delivered positive data from a Phase 2 trial of obeticholic acid (OCA) earlier this year. Shares tripled on the news. Galectin, a newly-coined member of the Russell 2000, is nipping at Intercept’s heels and actually may be closer than what first appears with a Phase 1 trial because of the potential to treat fatty liver disease even once it has progressed. What distinguishes their approach from others that the timing of intervention with their proprietary carbohydrate polymer drug GR-MD-02 may be largely irrelevant to outcomes, with GR-MD-02 seeming to work well even in advanced stages of liver fibrosis. This is especially important in fatty liver diseases because they are silent killers, often going undiagnosed for many years. The Galectin drug was granted FDA fast-track approval nearly a year ago.
Galectin has announced GR-MD-02 to be safe and well tolerated in the first cohort of patients in its clinical trial, as well as showing changes in key biomarkers, which suggests a therapeutic effect on fibrosis, or scarring of the liver that leads to loss of liver function. Enrollment has been completed in the second cohort, with results expected in the next few weeks, potentially a catalytic moment for the company’s value.
Further, late in June Galectin disclosed that research in an animal model of NASH showed an oral version of GR-MD-02 to demonstrate a significant improvement in disease. Coming at NASH with both infused and oral formulations could give Galectin a competitive edge going forward.
Raptor has been narrowly focused on NASH treatment of adolescents with a slow-release form of cysteamine bitartrate, which it developed after obtaining rights to the core drug from University of California at San Diego. Raptor is conducting a Phase 2b trial under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health.
Gilead is acting across a broader age spectrum in NASH treatment and should be completing enrollment soon for a Phase 2b testing of its drug simtuzumab (GS-6624). Results might be announced late 2016 or so. Gilead is looking to grow its footprint in the liver disease space that is being overrun by NASH diagnoses. The growing number of effective treatments for hepatitis C, including Gilead’s Sovaldi, are lending to a stabilized number in liver transplants related to hep C, with predictions that NASH will surpass hep C as the leading cause of liver transplants by 2020.
The apparently sudden prevalence of fatty liver disease and NASH on the biotech horizon is due to the increasing incidence of obesity worldwide and greater awareness of the conditions. After all, NASH didn’t even have a medical name three decades ago. A U.S. Centers for Disease Control reportsays that 34.9% of American adults are obese. That’s a 50% increase in obesity in less than 40 years and has lent impetus to the rise in NASH, a disease dubbed “the next big global epidemic” on CNBC’s NBR.
Those are big numbers and potentially big profits. So it is clear that fat is indeed driving the biotech bus, with Galectin, Intercept, Gilead and Raptor in the front seats and vying to take control of the wheel.
Click here to receive free email updates on Galectin Therapeutics’ developments: http://www.tdmfinancial.com/emailassets/galt/galt_landing.php
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