An­oth­er NASH play­er re­treats from bat­tered field af­ter tox­i­col­o­gy study flags po­ten­tial de­lay

NASH, the no­to­ri­ous liv­er dis­ease af­flict­ing an in­creas­ing num­ber of Amer­i­cans, has al­ways been the fo­cus at Metacrine ever since se­r­i­al en­tre­pre­neur Rich Hey­man un­veiled the first round of fi­nanc­ing all the way back in 2015.

Not any­more.

The San Diego-based biotech is halt­ing its NASH pro­gram and choos­ing in­stead to pri­or­i­tize its ef­fort in push­ing the same FXR ag­o­nist, MET642, in­to a Phase II tri­al for in­flam­ma­to­ry bow­el dis­ease.

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