Fibrosis is a common end stage in many diseases and affects organs such as the liver, kidney, and heart. Current methods to assess fibrosis are invasive or not sensitive enough to detect changes in fibrosis such as the deposition of new fibrotic components (fibrogenesis).
Platelet derived growth factor beta (PDGFRβ) is a marker of ongoing fibrogenesis and is upregulated in activated hepatic stellate cells. ATH001 is a radiopharmaceutical that is being developed to probe the presence of PDGFRβ using positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. ATH001 enables tissue specific quantification of active fibrotic disease and shows strong promise as a non-invasive tool for imaging fibrogenesis, providing valuable insights into fibrotic diseases such as metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH).
The latest data looking at fibrogenesis in the liver using PDGFRβ PET imaging will be shared at the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) congress later this week. This First-in-Human study assessed the uptake of ATH001 in participants with diagnosed MASH compared with healthy subjects. These results will be presented as a poster on Wednesday, May 27.
Abstract identifier: WED-090
Title: Imaging of liver fibrogenesis in MASH by PDGFR-β positron emission tomography
Authors: Eriksson O, Vessby J, Rorsman F, Lohith TG, Sur C, Derdak Z, Petibon Y, Tran T, Nedar L, Hagmar P, Schain M, Mitran B, Abouzayed A, Johansson E, Korsgren O, Johansson L, Wennbo H
A second abstract will also be presented at this year’s EASL congress, using gadoexetate-enhanced MRI to assess changes in liver transport function as in drug-mediated liver injury (DILI) and liver-mediated drug-drug interactions (DDI). This work was done as part of the TRISTAN consortia. You can read more about our work with gadoxetate here.
Abstract identifier: THU-075
Title: Assessing drug-mediated inhibition of liver transporter function with functional MRI: proof of concept
Authors: Jenkins S, Spear O, Checkley E, Tibiletti M, Min T, Hockings P, Galetin A, Kenna G, Parker G, Schuetz G, Scotcher D, Waterton J, Rowe I, Sourbron S, Rea B
The EASL congress takes place from May 27-30 in Barcelona, Spain. Find the entire Scientific Programme here.
About Antaros Tracer
Antaros Tracer is a sister company to Antaros Medical, formed to ensure an expedited and focused development of new Positron Emission Tomography (PET) tracers to be used as important biomarkers in drug development studies. Current disease area focus is fibrotic disease and immune-system activation in immune-oncology, inflammatory disease, and immunology.
For more information: Antaros Tracer