Send us a text

Roger Green assemblies audio clips from Surfing the NASH Tsunami's coverage of NASH-TAG 2022 to reveal an evolving view of the role combination therapies will play in treatment and management of NASH patients.

Discussion about "combination therapies" typically focuses on the idea of multiple agents prescribed concurrently to address a medical condition when monotherapy will not achieve desired goals. At NASH-TAG 2022, the concept of combination therapies took some interesting directions:

1. Longitudinal drug combinations -- initial intervention designed to cause fast reversal of fibrosis or defatting of the liver, followed by a longer term therapy (mono or combination, but not with the first-round agent) designed to provide longer-term, more complete metabolic benefits in a regimen that is safer, more tolerable, less expensive, or some combination of these.
2. Longitudinal diagnostics -- an early, inexpensive "rule out" test like FIB-4, followed by a liquid or machine based test that provides more accurate disease staging.
3. Logical combinations -- so far, most drug combination trials have resulted from a manufacturer trying to resuscitate a developmental agent that missed endpoints in monotherapy trials. It would be more logical to design combinations based on complimentary modes of action.

This episode explores these and other combination therapy issues using quotes from the NASH-TAG 2022 coverage and Roger's commentary.