Biotech Values

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One of the Last Untapped Blockbuster Diseases? Drug Companies Race to Find a Cure

By Anne Steele
Updated June 23, 2017 12:04 p.m. ET

The next frontier for multibillion-dollar drug therapies is a silent disease many people don’t know they have.

Dozens of pharmaceutical companies including Gilead Sciences Inc., Allergan PLC and Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc. have joined the fray to bring a treatment for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis—a common but often undetected fatty-liver disease—to market. Interest in the disease, known as NASH, has spurred at least six deals over two years valued at $3.52 billion or more.

Overall, more than 40 drugs in mid- and late-stage trials are targeting various aspects of the complex metabolic disorder.


NASH is the progressive form of nonalcoholic fatty-liver disease. Fat buildup causes inflammation, cell damage and eventually fibrosis.

The companies are lured by the promise of a large and growing pool of patients for whom there is currently no treatment. As much as 12% of the U.S. population is believed to have the disease, which is linked with other metabolic conditions on the rise including obesity and Type 2 diabetes, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. NASH generally has no symptoms early on but can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/one-of-the-last-untapped-blockbuster-diseases-drug-companies-race-to-find-a-cure-1498215600