In after-hours trading hours on Wednesday, Hepion Pharmaceuticals Inc. (HEPA) shares rose 5.70% to $0.649 following the presentation of new data findings. In the last trading session, HEPA’s shares fell -0.16% to $0.61. Shares of the company ranged from $0.5966 to $0.6458.
Where HEPA will present the data?
It was announced that Hepion Pharmaceuticals (HEPA) would present new findings by its collaborators at London’s Institute of Hepatology.
A joint meeting between the International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism (ISBRA) and the European Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism (ESBRA) scheduled for September 17-20, 2022 in Cracow, Poland, will feature an award-winning oral presentation on HEPA’s cyclophilin inhibitor, rencofilstat. ALD (“Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease”) is one of the world’s biggest health burdens without effective treatments. Cyclophilins play a role in many stages of liver disease, such as steatosis, fibrosis, inflammation, cell injury, and HCC, according to previous studies.
This study evaluated the effects of rencofilstat on fibrosis in hepatic stellate cell (“HSC”) cultures as well as on human tissue-derived experimental models of ALD. Besides reducing the level of alpha-smooth muscle actin in HSCs and improving collagen fiber alignment, rencofilstat also significantly reduced pro-fibrogenic markers in patient-matched precision-cut liver slices exposed to hepatotoxic insults and restored a balanced cytokine profile. ALD-induced fibrosis can be reduced by rencofilstat, which appears to have therapeutic potential when combined with cyclophilins, HSC activation, collagen deposition, and orientation.
HEPA’s other efforts
As part of Phase 2 clinical trial designed to measure liver function, Hepion Pharmaceuticals (HEPA) this week dosed the first subject with rencofilstat for NASH stage 3 (“F3”). HepQuant, LLC (“HepQuant”) and Summit Clinical Research (“Summit”) will collaborate on this trial which will take place over up to 20 sites in Summit’s Integrated Research Organization. In preparation for the start of what HEPA anticipated to be two very informative clinical trials in NASH F3 subjects, Hepion’s clinical team spent the majority of last year reviewing phase 2a data from the ‘AMBITION’ trial.
How HEPA will move further?
Hepion Pharmaceuticals (HEPA) hopes to gain a better understanding of how rencofilstat affects various key biomarkers of NASH by combining data from ALTITUDE-NASH with the recently announced Phase 2b paired-biopsy trial ASCEND-NASH in F3 subjects. It is expected that HEPA will be able to measure hepatic function at all three doses of rencofilstat with a very high level of sensitivity using ALTITUDE-NASH.
