Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. (CNAT)

[Theo]

Exactly. People lose sight of the fact that Novartis did NOT join forces with Conatus thinking that Emricasan was going to be solely used as a single drug therapy. Novartis was, and still is, looking for "combination treatment with a Novartis FXR agonist."

Per the agreement: Novartis is developing Farnesoid X receptor (FXR) agonists for the treatment of chronic liver diseases. As part of this collaboration, Conatus will conduct multiple Phase IIb clinical trials with emricasan in NASH. If results are positive, Novartis would then conduct Phase III studies of emricasan as a single treatment as well as development of combination therapies with an FXR agonist.