Hepion Pharmaceuticals Receives FDA Fast Track Designation for CRV431 for the Treatment of NASH

Hepion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. recently announced the US FDA has granted Fast Track designation for the company’s lead drug candidate, CRV431, for the treatment of NASH.

The FDA Fast Track designation allows sponsors to gain access to expedited drug approval reviews for medical conditions that are serious and potentially life-threatening, and where there is an unmet medical need. The program is also designed to facilitate drug development by making provisions for more frequent meetings with the FDA to discuss drug development plans, and Fast Track designation can lead to Accelerated Approval and/or Priority Review eligibility if certain criteria are met.

“CRV431 has been investigated in healthy subjects during our Phase 1 program, and more recently in subjects with presumed F2 and F3 NASH in our Phase 2a AMBITION study,” said Todd Hobbs, MD, Hepion’s Chief Medical Officer. “Administered once daily as an oral soft gel capsule, CRV431 has been well-tolerated and has shown signals of efficacy in NASH in this early Phase 2 study. We are now looking forward to initiating our larger Phase 2b NASH study, called ‘ASCEND-NASH’, in biopsy confirmed F2 and F3 NASH subjects in the coming months. We are keenly aware that there remains an urgent global need to develop NASH-specific therapeutic drugs for this potentially life-threatening condition, for which there are currently no FDA-approved drugs. Furthermore, the American Liver Foundation estimates that at least 5% of the US adult population has NASH. As such, we are very pleased to receive the FDA’s Fast Track designation and are looking forward to working closely with the Agency as we advance development of CRV431.”

Robert Foster, PharmD, PhD, Hepion’s CEO, added “This Fast Track designation provides for early and frequent communication with the FDA that will continue throughout the drug development and review process, which may lead to a more expedited drug approval and patient access to CRV431. Additionally, as part of the FDA Fast Track designation for CRV431 in NASH, Hepion will make its expanded access policy publicly available in the coming weeks.”

The company’s lead drug candidate, CRV431, is a potent inhibitor of cyclophilins, which are involved in many disease processes. CRV431 is currently in clinical-phase development for the treatment of NASH, with the potential to play an important role in the overall treatment of liver disease – from triggering events through to end-stage disease. CRV431 has been shown to reduce liver fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma tumor burden in experimental models of NASH; and has demonstrated antiviral activities towards HBV, HCV, and HDV through several mechanisms, in nonclinical studies.

Hepion has created a proprietary AI platform, called AI-POWR, which stands for Artificial Intelligence – Precision Medicine; Omics (including genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, transcriptomics, and lipidomics); World database access; and Response and clinical outcomes. Hepion intends to use AI-POWR to help identify which NASH patients will best respond to CRV431, potentially shortening development timelines and increasing the delta between placebo and treatment groups. In addition to using AI-POWR to drive its ongoing NASH clinical development program, Hepion intends to use the platform to identify additional potential indications for CRV431 to expand the company’s footprint in the cyclophilin inhibition therapeutic space.