Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. (CNAT)

[drugmanrx]

There are never any guarantees. Novartis has had winner and losers.

Couple of their losers:

Aradigm Corporation- inhaled insulin Novartis invested close to 50 million than dropped program during phase 3, not because of bad trial refuses because of Pfizer's inhale insulin caused lung cancer and was pulled from the market.

Novartis recently killed their oral insulin program.
http://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/novo-nordisk-kills-oral-insulin-rejigs-r-d-to-address-u-s-payers

With that said the experts at Novartis think that Emricasan is worth the gamble to invest 50 million at this stage of development and willing to commit 1.2 billion if successful along to way to market.

While there are no guarantees that Emricasan will ever make it to market the stock should appreciate several times from these levels as it advances though the clinical trial phases

Does its track record suggest that Emricasan is a low-risk flier for the company in a big potential NASH market or a more significant commitment?

As far as risk, there is no way of telling high or low risk, Many successful drugs have made it though clinical trials to market only to be pulled do to side effects that showed up in the general population (couple examples MSD-Vioxx, Bayer -Baycol).

Emricasan is one of the few drugs showing real promise at this time for nash, hence it's potential is off the charts.

http://www.pharmexec.com/who-will-win-race-treat-nash

To conclude Novartis has not always been right in there choices of developmental stage compounds but they have made enough right choices to be one of the biggest drug companies in the world.

Novartis like Conatus's Emricasan enough to put up 50 million up front I doubt you will get a better recommendation from the experts in the field than that