Antaros Medical is proud to be part of the ADVANCE (Accelerating Discovery: Actionable NASH Cirrhosis Endpoints), designed to further our understanding of liver cirrhosis and to identify biomarkers that will enable and accelerate the development of new therapies.
The observational study is being led by Newcastle University and the University of Edinburg and is funded by Boehringer Ingelheim. It will include 200 participants that have been diagnosed with or are thought to be at risk of developing advanced fibrosis or cirrhosis due to metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD, previously called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease or NAFLD) or metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH, previously called non-alcoholic steatohepatitis or NASH).
Liver cirrhosis is a global healthcare burden and accounts for around 2 million deaths worldwide per year (GBD 2017 Cirrhosis Collaborators, 2020). Today there are no approved therapies creating a huge unmet need for biomarkers that can further our understanding but also serve to accelerate drug development in this space. Liver cirrhosis is the result of chronic liver injury, whereby hepatocyte injury induces inflammation, which leads to the formation of fibrosis.
Participants in the ADVANCE study will undergo liver tissue biopsy, blood tests, and advanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) across multiple timepoints. Antaros Medical, in addition to setting up approximately 20 imaging sites across the UK and Europe, will be measuring and analysing several imaging biomarkers. These imaging biomarkers can provide valuable information regarding pathophysiological features that reflect changes in the structure, composition and stiffness of the liver.
These imaging biomarkers cover a variety of MRI-based assessments of the liver and spleen, body and muscle composition measurements, and gadoxetate-MRI to assess liver function. It will also include Magnetic Resonance Elastography (MRE) measurements of stiffness in the liver and spleen, the analysis for which we are working with our collaborators at Resoundant.
For more information about the ADVANCE study, please refer to the Press Releases from Newcastle University, The University of Edinburgh, and Boehringer Ingelheim.