Evaluation of the Physiological Stability Variability and Robustness of NIS4,a Serum Biomarker for the Diagnosis of Non-alcoholic Steaohepatitis
Patients at higher risk of progression to cirrhosis and clinical deleterious outcomes are those that have a high grade of necroinflammation together with significant fibrosis. This defines a level of disease severity which is called at-risk NASH. Currently registrational trials for NASH include only patients with at-risk NASH so it is predictable that when a drug will be approved for NASH it will be in patients with at-risk NASH. It is therefore important to be able to diagnose non-invasively patients with at-risk NASH. Also, the use of NIS4 in clinical trials or in the clinic has the potential to significantly reduce unnecessary liver biopsies by identifying patients with a lower risk of disease progression. GENFIT, a late-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to improving the lives of patients with metabolic and chronic liver diseases, is developing an in vitro diagnostic test for at-risk NASH. The test is calledNIS4™ and integrates four independent biomarkers - miR-34a-5p, A2M, YKL-40 and HbA1c. The output is a score from 0 to 1 with threshold values that identify patients at low risk and high risk of at-risk NASH with intermediate values representing indeterminate results. The objective of the program is to complete the development of the predictive and usable NIS4 score and to evaluate the impact of fasting or not fasting on the physiological stability, variability and robustness of circulating biomarkers for the diagnosis of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis over a 30-day period.
• Histologically documented steatohepatitis (NASH) with at least minimal (grade 1) hepatocyte ballooning and inflammation on a biopsy performed in the past year.
• OR, if a biopsy is not available:
‣ Presence of metabolic risk factors (see below) AND
⁃ Documentation of steatosis on imaging (hepatic ultrasound, CT scan or MRI) AND
⁃ Increased ALT \>30 IU/L OR liver stiffness \>5 kPa on Fibroscan
• Metabolically stable condition, in particular no weight change \>5% in the past 6 months, anticipated stable diabetic therapy during the study period
• No other identifiable cause of liver disease
• Patients affiliated to French social security.
• Written informed consent signed by the patient