Desnick – Advisory Committees or Review Panels: Recordati Rare Diseases; Consulting: Alnylam Pharmaceuticals; Grant/Research Support: Alnylam Pharmaceuticals; Patent Held/Filed: Alnylam Pharmaceuticals; Stock Shareholder: Alnylam Pharmaceuticals The following people have nothing to disclose: Brenden Chen, Jörg Hakenberg, Ramakrishnan R. Srinivasan, Dana O. Doheny, Inga Peter, Constanza Solis-Villa, Rong Chen, David F. Bishop Background: Moderate weight loss has been shown to result in histologic improvement in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Lorcaserin is a selective 5-HT2C
agonist approved for chronic weight management. Three large, double-blind, randomized studies (BLOOM: N Engl J Med. 2010;363:245-56; BLOSSOM: J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2011;96:3067-77; BLOOM-DM: Obesity. 2012;20:1426-36) have demonstrated the effectiveness of lorcaserin in inducing weight AZD8055 loss in patients with a body mass index of 27 to 45. We conducted a retrospective analysis to determine the ability of 52 weeks of lorcaserin 10
mg bid to improve NASH. The NASH clinical score predicts the presence of histologic NASH and was used as an indicator of NASH activity. Methods: Data were pooled from 3 clinical trials of similar design comparing Selleck Navitoclax lorcaserin and placebo in overweight or obese patients with or without type 2 diabetes (NCT00603902, NCT00395135, NCT00603291). All patients received diet and exercise counseling. The modified intent-to-treat/last observation carried forward population was analyzed for patients with both baseline and end of treatment NASH clinical score data. Liver parameters (ALT, AST) and weight loss in the MITT/LOCF population were assessed as % change from baseline. The NASH clinical
score was analyzed by comparing proportions of patients shifting from high or very high scores at baseline (NASH-pos) to low or intermediate scores (NASH-neg) at week 52. Results: Approximately 7% of control (182/2519) and lorcaserin-treated (190/2702) patients had a high-risk NASH clinical score, and both groups had an Epothilone B (EPO906, Patupilone) AST/ALT ratio of 0.9. Lorcaserin-treated patients showed significant improvements vs placebo in ALT (% change from baseline to week 52, -2.4 vs 3.0), AST (0.1 vs 2.6) as well as significant weight loss (-5.8 vs -2.4), all P<0.001. In an analysis of the time course of treatment effect, significant weight loss with lorcaserin vs placebo was seen as early as week 2, with peak effect at week 36; peak effect of lorcaserin on liver enzyme levels was at week 24. Significantly more patients treated with lorcaserin (120/190, 63.2%) vs placebo (89/182, 48.9%) switched from NASH-pos at baseline to NASH-neg at week 52 (P=0.006). Conclusions: Lorcaserin treatment for 52 weeks was associated with greater improvement in serum LFT parameters than placebo, and improvement in NASH clinical score in the majority of high-risk patients. Lorcaserin may be a treatment option for overweight/obese patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease/NASH.