Hepion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: HEPA) is experiencing a notable uptrend today, marking a 14.95% surge during the morning session, with its stock value reaching $3.3450. This rise of HEPA stock on the charts can be attributed to breaking news indicating that the company is set to review the efficacy of a pivotal trial, constituting a significant development.
Hepion (HEPA) is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company which focuses on Artificial Intelligence (“AI”)-driven therapeutic drug development for the treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (“NASH”), fibrotic diseases, hepatocellular carcinoma (“HCC”).
In an announcement today, Hepion conveyed its intention to unveil additional efficacy data derived from the Phase 2 ALTITUDE-NASH clinical trial of its flagship pharmaceutical, rencofilstat. The disclosure of this data is scheduled for post-market closure on Monday, November 13, 2023.
This revelation will ensue a late-breaker poster presentation by Hepion’s Senior Vice President of Clinical Pharmacology, Patrick Mayo, PhD, at the Liver Meeting 2023, organized by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) from November 10-14, 2023, in Boston, MA.
Furthermore, Hepion recently publicized the outcomes of a groundbreaking research study conducted in mice, wherein rencofilstat demonstrated its efficacy in preventing the proliferation of liver tumors induced by chronic infection with the human hepatitis C virus (“HCV”).
This study, authored by Drs. Winston Stauffer, Philippe Gallay, and their colleagues at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, and published in the peer-reviewed journal Viruses, revealed that rencofilstat effectively halted the progression from small liver nodules at 12 weeks post-infection to substantial tumors at 24 weeks post-infection.
It underscores rencofilstat’s distinctive advantage in exerting pleiotropic effects for the treatment of various ailments, diverging from the more narrowly focused mechanisms of currently available anti-HCV drugs that lack efficacy in managing liver cancer stemming from HCV infection.
Hepion envisions rencofilstat as an optimal therapeutic solution for such cancers, given its ability to impede viral replication and suppress cancer through distinct yet complementary pathways.
