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A Conatus Pharmaceuticals drug developed as a treatment for chronic liver disease has failed to beat a placebo in a mid-stage study, the first of four underway for the drug.
Conatus (NASDAQ: CNAT) tested its drug, emricasan, in liver transplant patients whose hepatitis C virus has cleared, but who still have fibrosis or cirrhosis in the transplanted organ. The drug is meant to reduce the activity of enzymes that play a role in inflammation and cell death. The goal of the Phase 2b study was to assess whether the Conatus drug was better than a placebo at stopping or reversing the liver damage caused by hepatitis C.
San Diego-based Conatus said late Wednesday that the response rate in the patient group given the test drug was 77.4 percent. But that measure did not place enough distance from the placebo group, where the response rate was 75 percent.
Despite the clinical trial failure, Conatus’s executives chose to focus on a subgroup of patients who had advanced fibrosis and early cirrhosis. In those patients, the response rate was 95 percent, CEO Steven Mento said in a prepared statement. He also emphasized that the study in liver transplant patients is separate from the company’s evaluation of the drug in partnership with Novartis (NYSE: NVS), which is focused on developing the drug as a treatment for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a fatty liver disease whose incidence has grown with the prevalence of obesity.